Friday, looking forward to the weekend.

     I stayed up late last night working on a wedding dress while I watched Mr. Selfredge on PBS. I like the story but he is a terrible actor and so is his wife.  Can't stand their acting skills.  This morning I need to do a little sewing and straitening and then I am off to do what ever I want.  Like work in the yard.  I have 4 pairs of pants to hem, a bedspread to lengthen, a couple of tops to alter and get this wedding dress ready for a final fitting.  There are other things to do in the shop but I will see how long I want to sew.

     We are getting our chicks this weekend and I am excited.  I hope it works out well.  I also want to go on a long bike ride if the weather is warm enough.  The sun is shining today but it is still quite chilly.  Too chilly for my arthritic hands to handle.

     I do not have to go into the studio today unless I want to and that is so nice.  It is hard to get a day off.  So I really appreciate it when I do.  Who doesn't want a long stretch of time to just do whatever makes them happy.  I hate stopping a project I am working on in the middle.  I am so grateful that I work at things I love.

saga cont:

     Beasty as we would grow to call him was the center of our home.  Every one enjoyed him.  We continued to live with our Grandmother in this beautiful duplex and summer became fall.  Sis would start school with me at the Rattle Snake.  Her school only went to 3rd grade.  So now this wonderful domain I had created would include my sister.  I was thrilled.  I really loved my teacher and I had great friends.  Sis, did not fair so well with her teacher.  I was not sure what the problems were over there, but it was constant tears and fights.  I was not there to witness and I really don't remember anything about that teacher at all.

     4th grade introduced long division.  I came home so confused.  We were supposed to guess a number that could go into another number.  Guess!  So if your were given 234 to divide by 6 just guess a number!  My mom was so frustrated and sat down with me in her teacher fashion and showed me how to figure.  It just made so much more sense.  Both Mom and Dad were math wizs, thank goodness.   I was in love with a boy in my class and quite a flirt.  This was the first year that mom was not room mother for my class.  She had a new baby and little sis and my twin and now our younger brother was in school.  We had to take turns.  Mom always was such a good room mom she went over the top on parties.  Most room mom's served donuts and cider for Halloween.  My mom came in with caramel apples and treat bags and games.  I remember being very put out at the room mom  who came into our classroom in 3rd grad with stale donuts and cider and I voiced my opinion rather loudly so she could hear.  This was very rude, but indicative of the the kind of behavior sis and I were capable of, we were just spoiled brats.  I remember the mother's eyes following me around the classroom as I sneered at her when ever I got a chance.

     I think my teacher that year was trying to get pregnant because she was very interested in my new baby brother.  She always asked about him.  I would shrug my shoulders, he was nice but not that nice.  We had a talent show that fall and sis and I performed an acrobatic routine.  We were very tiny and flexible.  Our teacher was an old vaudeville dancer and knew many Chinese acrobatic tricks.  We excelled at these.  People were amazed by our ability.  This brought us attention which we of course craved.  Sis and I were talented.  I have to say this, we were smart and talented.  Almost anything we did we did well.  This was not our fault, we were born this way.  What was our fault and perhaps the fault of our parents was our attitude toward these talents.   We just assumed everyone was this way.  We were not humble.

     I remember leaving for Christmas break and our teacher saying to us, "See you next year."  I was so upset that we would have a new teacher, until she made us realize that we were going into the New Year on our vacation.  Christmas break was fun.  Full of sledding, ice skating and play.  Of course Christmas would be celebrated at our house(which I hated).  It was grandma's house so of course it was celebrated there.  The adult Aunts drew names and then bought for the kids whose names were drawn.  If you had 5 kids you drew 5 names.  No one  wanted to get Aunt Marie as she was known to be cheap.  Well she was.  Every one wanted to get Aunt Nancy who was generous.  I swear every year I had Aunt Marie draw my name and Sis had Aunt Nancy.  I would get my stupid baton, or cross necklace and sis would have some fantastic toy which she would lord over me.
 
        Christmas eve was torture at our house.  First of all I would be in  a bad mood because I would know ahead of time Aunt Marie had my name.  We would have to clean house.  I mean really clean which meant fighting, yelling, screaming, beatings and so forth.  Finally mom would lay out new Christmas eve clothes.  That year it was white knee highs, navy wool skirts, red short sleeve sweaters, little sis had gold.  New black Mary Jane shoes.  The boys had little suits.  We were all sat on the hearth of the fireplace on order and our picture taken. Oh and I forgot to mention that we had to wear our hair in sponge rollers all day while cleaning, another charming experience.  I always look now at how puffy my eyes were under my (birth control, hub's name for them) glasses.  Oh the happy memories.

   We all trooped upstairs to Grandmas as all the Uncles and Aunts and cousins arrived.  Our cousins never had to clean up or put on dress clothes.  They had dirty hair, usually cut in pixie cuts because it was easier, and beat up shoes.  We had dinner and usually a few slaps from Uncles who needed to get there vengeance out on our mouths and outfits.  After all we were still living with grandma.  There was a lot of drinking, laughing and then sis and I would have to sing.   We did have truly angelic voices.  But this caused untold jealousy from our Uncles and cousins.  Grandma and mom were so proud.  Sis and I hated being paraded around like performing monkeys, because it just caused strife for us later. Finally we would open our exchange gift and we were expected to look grateful.  This was very hard.   When the drinking had gotten out of hand the family would go home , we would troop downstairs and open our new Christmas jammies, pose for one more picture in front of the hearth and go to bed. Christmas day was better.  Mom did not allow drinking in her house.  The Uncles were too hung over to appear and dad was as much of a kid as we were.  He played our games, built stuff with tinker toys, and took us out sledding.  No extended family just us.  Those were the good times.

     Our friends changed that year.  All of us were becoming more independent.  Most of our peers started skiing.  They got ski gear for Christmas while we still got toys.  It was just a different level of stuff.  If you want to call it stuff.  We had dance lessons and piano lessons, camp fire, and stuff.  Never quality but quantity.  Sis and I knew something was different but we didn't know what.  It was so confusing to see that we were different, we just did not know how to fix this and it was painful.

to be cont:

     Well I am off to the sewing machine with a smile on my face.

Have a great and productive day!

Kim