Monday, June 27, 2016
Confessions of a Midnight Cat Wrangler: Rewind it.....30 years Plus or Minus......I’ve bee...
Confessions of a Midnight Cat Wrangler: Rewind it.....30 years Plus or Minus......I’ve bee...: 3:00 a.m. June 27, 2016 Sally, my granddaughter, is watching Peppa Pig. She’s delightful. ( Sally and Peppa (the British pig) are both ...
Rewind it.....30 years Plus or Minus......I’ve been here before!
3:00 a.m. June 27, 2016
Sally, my granddaughter, is watching Peppa Pig. She’s delightful. ( Sally and Peppa (the British pig) are both delightful. It is the middle of the night. I’m not so delightful.
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Have you ever watched the movie Groundhog Day? I have been here before. God has a sense of humor. I have been here before. This is not my first rodeo. I have been here before. It was a different child but the same situation. I have been here before.
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3:00 a.m. 1986
When Mike, our middle son, was little, he got up EVERY night at about 3 a.m. He was delightful. Awake. Talkative. Loving. WIDE awake. Did I mention he was delightful? And he wasn’t sleepy one little bit.
The two of us would try to be quiet and let Molly (5), baby Danny (1), and Bill (36) sleep.
We would visit. Play.
Then, one night, we wound up watching tv after we stumbled upon the show “The Waltons.” It was a rerun on TBS. And he loved it.
*****************************
Our midnight ramblings were streamlined once we found John Boy and the rest of the Walton Clan. He would get me up by asking me what I was doing.....(I was trying to sleep).....and I’d stumble from the bed and head to the living room. We’d settle into the big, old Lazy Boy recliner, wrap up in a blanket and watch the Waltons....every night. EVERY Night. We didn’t miss a night. We watched the Waltons grow up, solve problems, say good night, love each other and become our friends.
****************************
Mike and I looked forward to that quiet time together. The two of us would be together and we enjoyed an hour of pure love. The Waltons taught us a lot about life in the hard scrabble world of a rural Virginia community during the Great Depression and World War II.
***************************
But it taught me even more about a little boy who needed some quiet time with his mommy. Mike looked forward to being with me. We would discuss the show, the characters, the story lines and having some time together. At the end of the show, he’d head back to bed with a “Night, Momma, I love you” and go right back to sleep.
**************************
June 27, 2016
4:00 a.m.
Sally and I are watching Peppa Pig. Peppa has a family and tonight, she’s planted a seed and she’s waiting for a strawberry plant to grow. Sally has been up about hour and her eyes don’t seem heavy at all. I’m having a cup of coffee and thinking about being a young mother and wondering how I had the stamina to keep going. But Sally has given me a memory of her Uncle Mike had been tucked away in my memory for a long, long time.
*************************
So, as the Waltons called out at the end of every episode for all of their nine seasons, “Good Night, Everyone!” and as I am able to say with sweet Sally on my lap, “Good memories and thank you, Sally."
Sally, my granddaughter, is watching Peppa Pig. She’s delightful. ( Sally and Peppa (the British pig) are both delightful. It is the middle of the night. I’m not so delightful.
********************************
Have you ever watched the movie Groundhog Day? I have been here before. God has a sense of humor. I have been here before. This is not my first rodeo. I have been here before. It was a different child but the same situation. I have been here before.
********************************
3:00 a.m. 1986
When Mike, our middle son, was little, he got up EVERY night at about 3 a.m. He was delightful. Awake. Talkative. Loving. WIDE awake. Did I mention he was delightful? And he wasn’t sleepy one little bit.
The two of us would try to be quiet and let Molly (5), baby Danny (1), and Bill (36) sleep.
We would visit. Play.
Then, one night, we wound up watching tv after we stumbled upon the show “The Waltons.” It was a rerun on TBS. And he loved it.
*****************************
Our midnight ramblings were streamlined once we found John Boy and the rest of the Walton Clan. He would get me up by asking me what I was doing.....(I was trying to sleep).....and I’d stumble from the bed and head to the living room. We’d settle into the big, old Lazy Boy recliner, wrap up in a blanket and watch the Waltons....every night. EVERY Night. We didn’t miss a night. We watched the Waltons grow up, solve problems, say good night, love each other and become our friends.
****************************
Mike and I looked forward to that quiet time together. The two of us would be together and we enjoyed an hour of pure love. The Waltons taught us a lot about life in the hard scrabble world of a rural Virginia community during the Great Depression and World War II.
***************************
But it taught me even more about a little boy who needed some quiet time with his mommy. Mike looked forward to being with me. We would discuss the show, the characters, the story lines and having some time together. At the end of the show, he’d head back to bed with a “Night, Momma, I love you” and go right back to sleep.
**************************
June 27, 2016
4:00 a.m.
Sally and I are watching Peppa Pig. Peppa has a family and tonight, she’s planted a seed and she’s waiting for a strawberry plant to grow. Sally has been up about hour and her eyes don’t seem heavy at all. I’m having a cup of coffee and thinking about being a young mother and wondering how I had the stamina to keep going. But Sally has given me a memory of her Uncle Mike had been tucked away in my memory for a long, long time.
*************************
So, as the Waltons called out at the end of every episode for all of their nine seasons, “Good Night, Everyone!” and as I am able to say with sweet Sally on my lap, “Good memories and thank you, Sally."
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Instant Life....or Honk, Honk!
Have I told you that my grandmother once asked me to come dial the rotary phone for her? I was about 8 and she was having none of that new fangled invention. In her late eighties, she needed to talk to someone but she had no desire to learn the latest toy-- the telephone.
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Fast forward to today.....the internet.....computers.....I-Pads......tablets....phones that do everything except pay our bills....wait, they do that, too. Life is at our fingertips in an instant!
****************
I believe in taking my time in this world of hurry, hurry....or as one of Molly’s former 3rd students said on a far too frequent basis, “Quickly, quickly!” I believe in stopping to smell the roses. I visit. I look. I read. I take my time. I am not a slave to my cell phone. It’s a tool....not an extension of me.
***************
I was in Atlanta twice in the past seven days. (We need to pray for all those people who drive in that traffic daily.) Everyone is in a hurry. There was a guy in the lane beside me blowing his horn immediately when the light changed. None of the cars in front of him were lallygagging....they were in as much of a hurry as he was. Every light. Every time. Honk honk. Honk honk. He made me nervous. I felt like my grandma....someone needed to come dial the phone for me so to speak. I’m not a high traffic, intense type of woman.
***************
"He needs some quiet time," thought this old teacher.
**************
He was late twenties.....suited up.....hip glasses.....crossover type car.....that kid is going to have a coronary by the time he’s 30! Honk honk!
**************
Instantaneous is not a word that is synonymous with Atlanta traffic. There’s no getting from point A to point B in a jiffy. Honk honk! Whenever I am driving on the connector, I think of all of the cars looking like fire ants streaming out of a big ant hill. Swarms of cars. SWARMS!
*************
I am content to stay in my small town and enjoy the freedom of traffic. I will give up the hustle, bustle for the quiet, quiet. Slowly, slowly!
****************
Fast forward to today.....the internet.....computers.....I-Pads......tablets....phones that do everything except pay our bills....wait, they do that, too. Life is at our fingertips in an instant!
****************
I believe in taking my time in this world of hurry, hurry....or as one of Molly’s former 3rd students said on a far too frequent basis, “Quickly, quickly!” I believe in stopping to smell the roses. I visit. I look. I read. I take my time. I am not a slave to my cell phone. It’s a tool....not an extension of me.
***************
I was in Atlanta twice in the past seven days. (We need to pray for all those people who drive in that traffic daily.) Everyone is in a hurry. There was a guy in the lane beside me blowing his horn immediately when the light changed. None of the cars in front of him were lallygagging....they were in as much of a hurry as he was. Every light. Every time. Honk honk. Honk honk. He made me nervous. I felt like my grandma....someone needed to come dial the phone for me so to speak. I’m not a high traffic, intense type of woman.
***************
"He needs some quiet time," thought this old teacher.
**************
He was late twenties.....suited up.....hip glasses.....crossover type car.....that kid is going to have a coronary by the time he’s 30! Honk honk!
**************
Instantaneous is not a word that is synonymous with Atlanta traffic. There’s no getting from point A to point B in a jiffy. Honk honk! Whenever I am driving on the connector, I think of all of the cars looking like fire ants streaming out of a big ant hill. Swarms of cars. SWARMS!
*************
I am content to stay in my small town and enjoy the freedom of traffic. I will give up the hustle, bustle for the quiet, quiet. Slowly, slowly!
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