Ode to 2018

Ode to 2018

Where did 2018 go?

I ask myself and do not know.

The older I get, the faster time goes.

I must become quicker with my blog's pictures and prose.

So much more I wanted to blog about this year,

but my time slipped away from me I fear.

Some things of 2018 will feature in posts of year next.

The way time has of gaining speed sure has me vexed.

Throwback Thursdays were new to my blog post line-up this year,

Alongside the Wordless Wednesdays, they spread some cheer.

Airplane rides, renovations, fish shacks and Poldark,

Live TV, gorillas, uni-brows and a Disney park,

A 1980's party, a new mermaid tattoo,

Language of the fan, a piece of Jade-ite or two,

A bird seed stealing raccoon, painted dots on glass,

Just to list a few, I wished to write more in 2018, alas.

I hope next year to stay one step ahead of Father Time.

To write more and share more of what is mine.

Come along with me to the year 2019,

and share things that yet remain to be seen.

Master(ful) Modification

We have lived in Tradewinds (our house) for nearly twelve years. The "Grand Lady" is showing her age a bit, here and there.

When our contractor friend John came to redo our upper, back porch  earlier this year, we asked him to take a look at our master shower. We were entertaining a renovation down the road and wanted his expert advice. He said he would do the job and to let him know when we were ready.

We were ready, more than ready.

The Colonel and I began to really look at the tiles of our master shower. Some of the grout around the tiles was beginning to have small gaps in it. There were also increasing areas of grout that were becoming resistant to our cleaning efforts. It was time to call John again. He told us to start shopping around for wall and floor tile.

The Colonel and I saw some tile we liked and we bought a sample of the wall and floor tile to see how it might look in the shower. The new blue color would go well with our bathroom walls.

John and I went tile shopping to make certain the samples The Colonel and I liked could still be viable options (they were). We also shopped for grout color, the metal surround and the marble threshold. After shopping, John treated me to delicious shrimp lunch. On November 26, John and Dan (someone John has worked with before) began the demolition of our master bath shower.

Our master bath is on the second floor and John decided it would be best to carry all demo refuse by hand, down the stairs, out the front door and into the bed of his truck. The first day of demolition was very humid. I felt a bit sorry for John and Dan as they lugged the heavy pieces of tile out of the house (but that was what we were paying them for right?).

Demolition was a noisy and dusty business.

John brought down a piece of wallboard with tile on it. The wallboard had some black mold on it. He said it was contained to that piece but it was good that we were having the shower remodeled.

John told us the remodel would take several days. We said that would not be a problem because we could use what was once the kids' shower, across the hallway.

The first night of being without our master shower, I popped into the kids' shower. I pulled the curtain shut and turned on the water. I waited but no hot water came out of the tap. Our son had just used the shower a couple of days prior when he was home for Thanksgiving (I texted him to ask if the water ever got hot while he was here and he said no, not really...why he never told us, I do not know). I shut the cold water off, got out of the shower and yelled to The Colonel that we had a problem. Thank goodness we had a backup shower to our backup shower.

The Colonel went out to the cottage, turned on the water heater and came back into the house. We did not have to wait long to have hot water for our showers. With our bathrobes on, we went out into the cool, dark night, walked along the sidewalk with flashlight in hand, and into the cottage.

We had to use the cottage shower for about five days. When John finished demolition of the shower and brought in the plumber to move the pipes over, we had the plumber also fix the kids' shower.

John and the tile man prepped the shower for tiling. They attached waterproof boarding onto the wall and put down a mud floor before they covered it with a heavy rubber surface.

The tile man who worked on our shower was semi-retired and he said he was doing this job because it was John who asked him to do it. John said he wanted to hire the best tiler he knew to do our shower. I am glad he did.

It was interesting to see the tiling job progress. First the walls were tiled.

When the walls were done (minus grout), it was time to tile the floor and niche.

Then came the grout...

Finally, our shower was complete. The renovation was completed in about two weeks (to be fair, John could have had it done a bit sooner but The Colonel and I took a little trip to St. Augustine during the renovation and John could not work on the shower then).

The old shower had corner shelves but we wanted a niche in the new one. We also wanted a larger shower head and had it moved to a different wall (the faucet handle remained in the original place).

Old vs. New...

When John was here working on the new shower, he noticed that our side door is in need of repair. We have been noticing that too. The water from storms, especially from Hurricane Irma, has caused the wood to swell and crack. We have hired John to replace the door's jamb for us but we will wait until the new year to start that project.

It is good to have a house builder as a friend.

Throwback Thursday

Yes, that is me, I was a "band geek"; a marching and concert/symphonic band geek. This photograph was taken my senior year of high school (1979). I am in my marching band uniform. Let us entitle this photograph, Girl with Trombone.

I began playing trombone as a fluke really.

My grade school, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, did not have a music instructor in residence. Mr. Ed Miller was a travelling band director. He would visit parochial schools in the area and teach children to play musical instruments and direct the bands.

I was in fourth grade when I first met Mr. Miller. I wanted to play the trumpet but he said he needed a trombone player and that I had the perfect embouchure (the way in which a player applies their mouth to the mouthpiece of a brass or wind instrument) for playing the trombone and I also had long enough arms to reach the slide positions for some of the notes. Mr. Miller also happened to know where my parents could buy a used trombone at a decent price. The trombone had belonged to a student who had died in a farming accident (or so I was led to believe).

I was never stellar at reading music (something I may remedy before I "wake from this dream of life"). I tended to play better by ear than site read.  Mr. Miller would mark the slide positions over the notes if I needed them. Each year the parochial schools would get together for competitions against one another. One year, I had a solo during a competition. It was at the beginning of the song, King of the Road.  I was very nervous about playing my solo but I performed it perfectly.

I liked marching band much more than concert/symphonic band. I enjoyed being outside and learning the steps, moves and music for each of the shows we performed. Not only did the marching band perform during half-time shows at football games, we also marched during local parades such as the Homecoming and Christmas parades.

Every summer the marching band participated in the Indiana State Fair Band Day competition. When home, we practiced twice a day (morning and evening) and while at band camp, we practiced three times a day. We were working on the music and moves of our show that would last between four to six minutes. Each year there were roughly fifty bands in the competition. All bands would march in the morning and then the judges would decide who would march in the "Sweet 16" during the evening shows. One of the 16 bands would become the number one marching band in Indiana. I marched in the competition three years: 1976-we placed 3rd, 1977-we placed 7th and 1978-we placed 5th. Of course, we wanted first place, but making the "Sweet 16" was sweet.

In 1977, the marching band went to Disney World during spring break on chartered buses. We were invited to march in the Magic Kingdom on April 5th. A consultant at Disney World, who was a judge in the 1976 State Fair Contest, was the one who gave us the invitation. Everyone on the buses were so excited when we sited our first palm tree along the roadside.

Before we went to Orlando, we were scheduled to play a one-hour concert on the final evening of the Festival of States in St. Petersburg. We played in the city's band shell. I remember a lot of ancient people attending the concert.

While in Orlando, not only did we march in the parade, we had time for various Disney World activities and a visit to Sea World. I knew I always wanted to live in Florida and that visit in 1977 made me even more determined to do so (now I am becoming one of those ancient people in the Sunshine State).

In May of 1978, the marching band participated in the Indianapolis 500 Parade. We were the 88th unit in the parade and performed for roughly 150,000 parade-goers (it is over 300,000 today and more than a million television viewers). The parade route was roughly two miles long and took about 90 minutes to march. There is a piece of black and white carpeting along the route. They call it the VIP/TV zone. When our band hit that carpeting, we played and marched as cameras broadcast us live on television. I remember that day was hot. We were wearing our heavy band uniforms. I am not sure, but I think someone in the band might have even fainted.

I no longer have my trombone. Many years ago, I loaned it to one of my nephews. He thought he might want to take it up. He didn't and I have not seen it since.

Hopefully someone somewhere is playing it...and playing it better than I ever did.

A Tiered Trio

Christmas is nearly upon us and The Colonel and I will have a full house this year.

Roll call: My Favorite-In-Laws, my younger sister, her husband, Yam, Spud and his girlfriend.

This year, instead of having a repeat of our Thanksgiving meal like we normally do, The Colonel and I have decided to make two delicious casseroles (one will be made with some leftover turkey from Thanksgiving that is currently in the freezer). We will make some delicious, vegetable, side dishes to serve alongside the casseroles.

My sister is bringing some dessert with her. I do not know what she plans to bring but I know it will be good. I will also supply a bit of dessert. Well, actually a friend of mine supplied the dessert. She made a huge batch of Whooppie Pies and gave me some. She said they freeze well, so they too are in my freezer.

I have the perfect tiered serving dish for the desserts (I did make that, with The Colonel's assistance).

A couple of years ago, I attended a high tea that was given by a friend. Libby had beautiful tiered serving plates for all of the finger sandwiches and desserts. She made them herself. She told me what making them entailed. All she used was three cheap/thrift shop plates, two glass candle sticks from a dollar store and strong adhesive. Libby no longer wanted to keep the tiered serving plates, so she gave me two of them.

The Colonel and I were in Walmart a few weeks ago and saw some low-priced, pretty, Christmassy plates. We decided to buy them so that we could make a tiered serving plate for our Christmas desserts. We also made a trip to the dollar store and bought two glass candlesticks. I already had the adhesive in my junk drawer.

Usually the top plate on a tiered serving dish is smaller than the one below it. I was unable to find a smaller plate that I liked, so the top two tiers of our serving plates would be equal in size.

I liked the plaid pattern of the bottom and middle plates. I wanted something different on top, so I chose the holly pattern.

The Colonel and I measured the plates to find their exact center and then we dry-fitted the candlesticks and drew faint pencil lines around their bases. When we had the plates marked we began gluing the candlesticks onto the plates.

This stage of the process had a couple of phases. We first glued the base of a candlestick to the bottom of the plates that would become the top and middle tiers. We let those dry overnight (overkill I know, but we got busy doing other things and did not get back to the project until the next day).

When we returned to the project, we flipped the plates over and then glued the top of the candlestick (which would become the bottom of the pedestal between the tiers) to the serving surface of the bottom and middle plates.

We were pleased with the final look of our tiered serving plates.

Now every time I find myself in a thrift shop or dollar store, I look at the plates and think about all of the different possibilities of mixing and matching patterns and sizes to create lovely tiered serving plates.

Throwback Thursday

I remember bits and pieces of the day the above photograph was taken. I am pretty sure it was taken at my Aunt Dode's house. Aunt Dode was one of my maternal grandmother's older sisters. Her given name was Lola Avanelle, but we all called her Dode. I have no idea why.

Aunt Dode's house was tidy and orderly. I remember my mom telling us to be careful and not touch anything. We spent most of the visit out-of-doors.

The photograph was taken in 1964. My brother Andrew was born that year and he is just a few months old in this photograph. He looks to be about three or four months old, so that, and the fact that we girls are dressed in warm weather dresses makes me think this was taken in the summer of 1964. I would have been getting ready to turn three that September.

Back row, left to right: Me, my oldest sister Lucinda/Cindy (7), my brother Andrew (on Cindy's lap), my second oldest sister Kathleen/Kit (6).

Front row, left to right: My third oldest sister Lori (4), my younger sister Jennifer (almost two).

In the three years following the taking of this photograph, two more brothers would be added to my sibling roster: Michael and Samuel.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Throwback Thursday

The picture above was taken in March of 1998. Yam (6), Spud (4) and I are standing (well, I am crouching) in an ancient creek bed near the Black Mesa in the Panhandle of  Oklahoma. The Colonel is snapping the photograph.

The Colonel had just come home from a deployment and we wanted to take a family trip to see some of the sites that Oklahoma had to offer.

We had read that you could see dinosaur footprints near the Black Mesa, so we loaded up the Jeep and headed that way.

When we reached our destination we began searching for the ancient dinosaur footprints. We looked high and low. We couldn't see anything, yet the travel book we consulted said that there were indeed prints in this location.

The Colonel climbed a little ledge that was hanging over the creek bed and he immediately yelled to us that we were right on top of the footprints! From where Yam, Spud and I were, the footprints looked like puddles in the creek.

The tracks are preserved in the sandstone strata and were originally discovered in 1980s and contained 47 footprints. Due to erosion, only a third of the tracks are visible today.

Scientists were intrigued by two tracks in particular that were much deeper than the others and had a ridge. They believe that the dinosaur was walking on a mudflat area and slipped, leaving a telltale sign that has lasted for millions of years.

Although the exact species is not known, scientists have stated that the tracks came from a Theropod, which is a scientific classification for bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs including Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Yam and Spud liked seeing actual dinosaur footprints...so did The Colonel and I. What kid (young or young at heart) doesn't like dinosaurs?

Wordless Wednesday

Great Minds Think Alike

The Colonel and I celebrated our 32nd anniversary in October. We've never made a huge deal out of our anniversaries. There were many years that The Colonel was deployed and was not home on the day of our anniversary. Sometimes we would celebrate it on a day before The Colonel left or some day after he returned home.

That being said, now that The Colonel is retired and does not deploy, we could go "all out" and  make the day of our anniversary very special (a dozen roses, jewelry, expensive dinner out) but we still don't.

We believe that every day we have together is special. Now on our anniversary day, we usually exchange cards and go out for lunch (rarely dinner...the older we get, the more we stick to home during the evening hours).

This year we exchanged our cards during breakfast while sitting on the couch and watching recorded home improvement shows.

We both laughed when we opened our cards. This year we had given one another cards with a star theme. We have given each other the same card in the past.

The Colonel's card to me...

My card to The Colonel...

It's little coincidences like this that make The Colonel and I know we were made for one another and that every day we have together is a special day, no matter the date.