Sunday, February 15, 2009

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Oh wonderful joy! What a great feeling! I got on the scale this morning, and I had hit that first goal! My intentions were to lose 10 pounds by February 28. WELL! Here it is, February 15, and those 10 pounds are GONE!!!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!

I had a leisurely cup of coffee this morning, and then I got up and fixed my breakfast. My husband let me sleep in this morning. I suffer from migraines and had one all day yesterday, so he knew I would feel like getting a little extra sleep, especially with my medication I take for them. Anyway, after I got up and had my coffee and fixed my breakfast, I went for a walk. I went for a walk yesterday too, with my husband, but it was a nice, slowly paced walk and we didn't go probably more than say maybe half a block each direction. It was mainly to look at part of our fence. This morning I hitched up my German Shepherd, Heidi, and off we went. Morris, one of our farm cats, decided to follow. We moved right out! I think I walked about 1/4 mile each direction. It didn't take long, but boy did it feel good!

When we turned around to come back, Morris caught up with us and he just drove Heidi crazy! LOLOL They really like each other, and Morris was walking along Heidi's front leg all the way back, rubbing on her and trying to play, and Heidi was just SO frustrated with him! LOLOL But bless her big old heart, she never tried to do anything to him. She just hopped over him and kept up with me!

Well, where were we from before? Let's see now..... Oh yes, my mother's cooking. I guess I have to step back a few steps on that to say I am the youngest in a family of 4 girls. My father passed away when I was 7. He was an alcoholic, a smoker, a womanizer, and basically was only around when he wanted to be. My mother was a very hard working little woman. She worked hard to pay for the bills my father left her with. She worked lots of jobs. She was the housekeeper at the junior high school in our town, at that timed called a Matron. (okay, so I'm dating myself here). That was her main job. She also sold Avon, Tupperware, Stanley, and modeled clothes for a clothing party, it was called Jer Maray or something like that.

She was all of 5 feet 1 inch, and in later years, lost down to 4 feet 11 inches. Mom would get up sometimes at 4:30 in the morning, sometimes earlier, go to the basement and wash a load of clothes on the old wringer washer, so I could have clothes for school and she could have clothes for work. Then, if there was time, while the clothes were drying outside on the line (we didn't have a dryer), she would walk the railroad track behind our house and pick raspberries, or go to a friend's house to pick strawberries. Then it was off to take me to the babysitter and she went to work. After she finished that job, we headed out for the Avon, Stanley, Tupperware route, or to one of the parties she modeled for.

On the weekends, we went to the strawberry patch and picked, starting at 5 a.m. I went and helped (as much as a 7 year old will help). We picked for halves. We picked strawberries there, had another farmer who let us pick for halves on green beans and peas, and 2 more other places let us (in season) pick pears and plums and apples. Mom had no room for a garden, but that sure never stopped her. At night she would can as much as she could, and if she couldn't can it that night, she would juice it up or cook it to the stage of canning, and it would be put in our basement (which was always nice and cool) until the next evening.

Mom finally got a different full-time job. She worked in the housekeeping department of the hospital, and she began cleaning houses for other people. Rarely did I ever hear her complain, and after the death of my father, never did she ever go out with another man. She had me to raise (my sisters are older than I am and were already married and out of the house). Her one luxury was to have her hair fixed. Every 2 weeks she went to the beauty salon and had her hair done up in a French knot. My mother was beautiful. I always thought so, still do, even though that good little woman is gone.

But I believe that mom cooked lots of food and allowed me to eat so much of it, simply to make up for the time she couldn't spend with me. She wanted to give me something, so she gave me food. She gave me her love, but didn't feel like it was enough. Looking back, I just feel like this was what happened. We also used to have a special treat every 2 weeks. One lady she cleaned house for paid a little more than the others. Mom worked for her in the morning. She cleaned from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on that house and then we had 2 stops; the grocery store and the gas station. The grocery store was a Hy-Vee and they had a deli. You could get a main dish and 2 sides plus a roll for $1.00. We each got a plate after the grocery shopping was done, and then we went to the gas station and filled the tank for the next 2 weeks, went home and sat down and ate our "fancy" dinner from Hy-Vee. What a treat! It was also special because mom and I sat at the kitchen table and ate together............................

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