Tales of a Shoebox Princess

I scanned a photo album's worth of pictures into my electronic repository. The photos are from 1999-2000. Here are some of Hayley that I am particularly fond of. I love how Hayley folded her feet underneath her when she went to sleep here Hayley and an amaryllis She chose to use a pillowcase as a sleeping bag and here she fell asleep on a giant Pikachu. The children are still mourning the loss of this stuffed animal. It's their fault that it had to be thrown away--they loved it to shreds. Hayley and her version of a smile. Easter dresses and a rubber snake The little cheeky! She looks so different now.

Spring is here! And along with warmer temperatures, green grass, and daffodils, we have track meets to go to! Guess who is happy about the track meets? Yes, folks, that is a TOTALLY natural smile on his face! (I have such a hard time getting him to smile for the camera. Either he doesn't want to smile, or his smiles are really weird-looking) There is hope for senior pictures! (which are coming up this summer) Here he is at the starting line. First lap (hint: he's not the bald kid) This is from the second lap. And at the finish line! He came in 8th (of 28) with a time of 4:54. Way to run Paulie! As I was editing pictures, Jim leaned over my shoulder and asked, "Did you ever think little Bucket Head would grow up to be a good runner?" Bucket Head. I haven't thought of that particular nickname for Paulie in a long time. A very long time ago (oh, maybe 14 or 15 years) our tow-headed toddler found a Halloween bucket and put it on his head. He wore it for days. And nig...

Last letter, dear readers. I picked this one because Dave taunts Jim in it. I left home when Dave was 11 and so I didn't see him develop into the smart aleck he is today, but this letter proves that he was winding up to it. And it showcases one of Dave's favorite pastimes, baseball. At the top of the page, he starts with this: A simple math equation for Sara, 11(2)=x, answer on back. [He sent this around my 22nd birthday so this letter would have been from early Dec 1989 when Dave was a freshman in high school] Dear Sara and Jim (and the little one) [I was pregnant with Kate], Very very cold here. No snow. That's very, very bad for me and the ski team. I got new skis and poles, and boots and the whole bit. Now all I need to learn is how to ski. I got on the B honor roll for the 1st quarter! That's quite an accomplishment for me at least. I don't know if I told you this already, but I got a student recognition award for history. Jim, here's the new Oakland ...

For Mike's letter feature, I'm going to post excerpts of a few letters. Jen, enjoy the insights into a younger Mike (late 80s, early 90s). Sara--Hi How's collage [sic], sounds big, fun and easy to get lost in. Jr. High is so fun. I know so many new people. I'm on the wrestleing [sic] team and we even have cheerleaders...School's kind [of] tough though like pts and stuff assignment cards. It's all very proper. Sara, Hola, que tal? Tell me some college things. I can't stand this paper. It's very lame [he wrote a letter on stationary with Garfield jumping into a pile of flowers on it]. Mom bought Twinkies for us kids lunches. Weird. Deer Sarah [Mike went through a phase of purposeful alternate spellings] I got a cd player (don't tell mom). It's real cool and I got my thumbnail pierced. I showed it to J_____ V_____ A________ (flaming art teacher) [Mike's words, not mine. And he also wrote the teacher's full name which I am blotting out in ...

I cleaned in my room just a little today, if you can call putting really old letters into a binder "cleaning." And because I have nothing to post about today, I am going to post the contents of one of the letters, written 25 September 1986 by my brother Jake, who was a freshman in high school at the time, and I was a freshman in college. I'm gonna type it as he wrote it, even though it pains me not to change his non-standard usages to standard ones. He writes: Dear Sara, I am writing this letter on a computer in the southern wing of the building. This computer center has one Apple IIe and aaaah, well I guess it's the only one [I'm butting in here. The building Jake is referring to is my mother's house. Yes, she had an Apple IIe! She was ahead of the times back then, courtesy of her husband, my stepdad Gary.] It is so much easier to write letters with this Applewriter disk Gary let me use [floppy disks!]. Ha Ha Ha I thought that was funny so should you. In o...

Because I spent the weekend in a mild state of hysteria over an activity, today's post will simply be ornamental. We have a tradition in our family: every year, I add a family picture ornament to our tree. This is the one from 2004. Sometimes I make the ornament, and sometimes I buy a ornament frame, like I did for the one above. The tradition started because back when Katie was not yet one, someone gave us a "baby's first Christmas" ornament: The year after that, I had a cute picture of Katie and put it on the tree. When Other Jim arrived, I had to add him too. Of course he would be sad if Katie had her face on the Christmas tree and he didn't. Now all the kids expect a new family picture ornament and they start asking me in November if I'm going to do one. I haven't done the one for this year yet, but I do have the picture for it. The last two years, Katie hasn't been in the picture, but this year she will be because she was here for the picture-t...

I scanned another album-ful of pictures a couple weeks ago. I took a lot of pictures of Katie when she was little, and this was that album. While looking at all the pictures, I was again very grateful that I had taken so many pictures. In the pictures are people who are not with us anymore. I'm also grateful for the grandparents (some of whom are still around)--my grandparents, Jim's grandparents, and Katie's grandparents. There's an awful lot of happiness in my life as a direct result of my grandparents. And Jim's grandparents and parents contributed positively to my good relationship with Jim. I've never felt unwelcome with Jim's family. I decided I would post some tributary pictures. I don't have all the grandparents, but I have some. I might have the missing ones in the next album. So if you don't see yourself, you might have to wait til the next tribute post. And this is a bonus tribute for Katie, since she's in all the pictures. S...

Today was the first day in a week that I felt capable of doing housework for an extended period of time. I was a madwoman in the basement...mostly because certain people don't pick up their clean socks and put them away, nor do people move the dumbbells to vacuum. We are just generally a bunch of lazy pigs in this house. We still had all the detritus from the recent computer switch sitting on the two-couch. I had to clean all that off and sort it out. I cleaned off the computer desk. I had noticed earlier in the day when I went to take a picture with my camera that my battery charger was missing! I panicked for a while. How was I to photograph the cats without a battery??? How was I to document the Halloween decoration set up? How was I to record further installments in the never-ending parade of pictures of band concerts and running meets? In my dedication to cleaning the two-couch, I was rewarded because I found the battery charger while I was cleaning up the computer-switch...

These kids don't exist anymore. They've been replace by taller (except in Katie's case; she's not much taller), less huggy people. Actual people. No more are they my own little dollies to dress up and play house with. I'm thinking of having OJ and Katie reenact the above picture when Kate visits next week. Three Jims. Jim (I'm talking to the one on the left in the picture), I wish you could come out for a visit to reenact this picture, although Other Jim might not fit on your lap anymore. I'm including this picture to commemorate the day my son got a hole in one at the local mini golf course. and also to give a preview for a certain pastry that will need making. It won't be exactly the same, but there are distinct similarities. And it's not for a birthday. And with that suspense, we leave the realm of the countdown--4 days til Kate comes, 6 days til party, 7 days til graduation--and move on to track. I promise this will be the last track-related...

He vomited on the couch. We don't know when. But we just found it yesterday and it was all dry and crusty. He got some on a box of photos that had been sitting on the couch so we had to take all the photos out and put them in another box. Fortunately, the photos were still in envelopes so none of them were wrecked. But I thought while we were cleaning, I should scan the photos into the computer for safe-keeping. So here are a few photos, which I'm posting because the cat threw up. And no, I didn't take pictures of the cat vomit. They are in no particular order and all of them are from the year 2003, except for one which is from the last day of 2002. A nine-year-old Paulie who I think in this picture looks a little like his Uncle Mike (yes, I said Mike, not Dave) here. And it's not because he's making a face at the camera. It's the eyes. This is the New Year's Eve 2002 that we spent at Sea World. 4-year-old Matt was trying to pet a dolphin and it sq...

I haven't done a retro post in a while. I looked at my photo albums (back in the day when I used actual film and had the pictures printed up and then I stuck them in albums) and pulled one out to fish around for any usable pictures. I looked through the album and thought, "These aren't retro." But they are quickly approaching retrohood. The photos are nearly eight years old and as far as the two subjects are concerned, they are even older than that (and possibly never really happened at all). The first one is OJ asleep with a beanie baby on his chest. I think beanie babies are like cats; this one is presumably trying to suck OJ's soul from him as he sleeps. It's even got its tongue out, drooling in anticipation of owning OJ's soul. By the way, that quilt is now approaching threadbare-hood (threadbareness? threadbarity? It's gettin' old). And here is OJ in his "creative sleep" mode. Who on earth would willingly sleep like this? He has ...

I'll call this picture "A Tribute to 80s Big Hair and Glasses" (even though my hair isn't as big as big hair could get back then). A co-worker from my cashier job took this picture during work hours. I'm glad she took it so I could show you my LOVELY brown smock! And the shirt I sewed for myself (although you can only see a little bit of it). If you look closely, you can see the packaging of one of my favorite chocolate truffles. OK, the big hair is gone for the moment in this picture, ONLY because I washed it. The gigantic glasses, however, are still there. I don't know who took this picture--either Jen or Jake. I could do kind of an I Spy thing with this picture: find the hand with the missing finger, find the clarinet, find the fuse box (that was a joke for Travis who couldn't find my mom's fuse box when he and my sister visited for Christmas and he had to ask ME where it was. Mom either didn't know herself or she was busy. Fortunately, ...

I just got back from the eye doctor, and my eyes are dilated and thus non-functional. I would have to schedule an eye appointment on a bright winter day with lots of snow around to increase the light reflection so that when I walked out of the office it felt like the sun himself had come down to earth and was standing between me and my van, and he was directing all of his sunbeams right into my corneas, sunglasses notwithstanding. Instant headache. I hoped the roads are empty on the drive home because I was going to have to shut my eyes the whole way to keep out Mr. Photon-torpedoes-right-into-the-optic-nerves Sun. I came home, shut all the drapes in the house, turned off all the lights (um NO, I didn't leave the lights on while I wasn't home! Must have been the cats who turned the lights on), and searched by touch in my fabric pile for anything that could be used as a blindfold. I can't read, I can't type (I don't know how I'm doing this), I can't do ho...

My marriage can buy alcohol now. Not that it will though; it's a good marriage and it does what it's told, and it has been told not to frequent bars. Jim and I have been married 21 years today. I don't think we've ever had a rocky period, except for that one time early on (sometime in July 1989) when he got mad at me for freaking out over being pregnant (with Katie), which I probably deserved. I thought he was going to divorce me for two whole hours. Although if you asked him (not in my presence) he might say we HAVE had a rocky period (go ask him and then tell me what he said. No I'm not 14, why do you ask?). He's never mentioned not liking me so I'm guessing that he's been ok with "us" for these 21 years. He DID have cold feet before we were married though. I sincerely hope that he doesn't regret taking action on those cold feet. And that's why we keep lots of blankets on the couch downstairs--no cold feet. That Was Then featu...

Last night we watched Dead Poets Society for the anniversary movie countdown. I generally don't like dramatic movies because I get restless and twitchy, especially if my hands have nothing to do. And they didn't last night because I was still waiting for the last day of the knitting pattern to show up and I didn't have any other projects started. But I do like this movie first of all because it has Robert Sean Leonard in it, who is now on a TV show called House , which I like to watch. After watching the movie, I got to thinking about English class. I had two memorable English teachers (well, two and a half if you count Mr. Skoy as the English teacher/croquet club advisor--a whole other post), one of which was Mr. Gulner. He was my 8th grade English teacher and at first we did not get along. I don't remember why. He kicked me out of class once for making an offhand jokey comment and I broke down crying (stupid hair-trigger waterworks). We had a chat in the hall...

Time for more old pictures of me, the not-so-bad version! Unless you think 80s fashion was of the devil, in which case, you might want to look away. My senior year was really the only year I participated in anything. It took me that long to finally realized that it was fun to hang out with people (or to get a driver's license so I could get myself to and from activities and work). This is the Woodwind Quartet (notice there are seven of us. Perhaps the director couldn't count. He never was known for being particularly smart). I am second from the left. Call me a band geek, but I LOVED being involved in music. I only went to Prom my sophomore year but I managed to repurpose the dress for a theater awards function during my senior year (I didn't win anything). You can see the tip of my show peeking flirtatiously out from the hem of the dress! (I wish I could still fit into that dress. Too bad Katie wore it for Halloween several times and destroyed it. YES, I'LL A...

I'm taking a break from all the hubbub of spring break (where it's neither spring, nor do I get a break) to post a picture. Just an interesting picture of Hayley and a disapproving cat. Hayley had these lights up in the family room for her party. And now, time for vague recollections from my childhood: Drawing floor plans for boarding schools. I liked to envision and draw places to live. Sadly, I never became an architect. Making mud pies in the back yard with Jenni. We ate mud. I don't think I liked it. Playing elevator in the first house I lived in. There was one place in the house that was surrounded on each side by a door. One led to mom and dad's bedroom, one led to the bathroom, one led to my room which I shared with Jenni, and one led to the living room. I would place a stuffed animal or doll behind each door and then pick each toy up as the "elevator" went up and down. Playing "watergate" with Eric from down the street when we lived o...