My mother gave me homework

I get a text from my mom yesterday, this isn't odd but the text it self was.  It was a mass text to all the grand kids telling us to think of memories of our grandparent, aunts and uncles from her side of the family. This has gotten me to thinking.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, I am just down right lucky to have the family I have.  Growing up I just assumed all families were as close as mine.  It was normal for me, so I just figured it was for everyone else.  As I grew up though, I learned however that we were actually the exception to the rule. 


I started my little stroll down memory lane with Papaw, I have mentioned him and the uncles here.  He was a little man in stature but big in heart when it came to his family, not to mention that man could grown ANYTHING!!  He had a green thumb that sadly was not passed down to future generations.  Then there is Mamaw.  One memory that sticks out the most, is her picking me up at school sick one day when I was in elementary school.  I remember going to the grocery story and her getting a can of chili beans and taking me home and fixing chili beans for me and letting me eat in bed. To this day chili is a comfort food for me.  Then there are the uncles.  These two men, left  our family entirely too soon and have left huge boots to fill.  My memories of them are more when I was older.  I remember one of Uncle Edwards visits from Oklahoma, he stayed with me and my family.  He slept in the race car bed in the kids room.  We would get up in the mornings and sit and have coffee and just enjoy the morning.  We might chit chat a bit, but mostly just enjoyed being there together.  Uncle Gerald went into the army when I was little, maybe 7ish.  He sent me a spud mckenzie dog all the way from Texas just because he knew I would like it.  You see, I was slightly spoiled as a kid, being the first grand kid and all.  My aunt Patricia is proof positive of this.  We were in a story when I was little and I found a pair of boots that I wanted.  Tricia didn't have the cash for it, so I so sweetly told her to write a check, and you know what happened next...yep she wrote a check and bought me boots (told you I was spoiled).  Then there is Audrey.  She is the only one I can count on to play with my hair, and braid it and it look decent.  Even to this day I love to sit down and let her brush and braid it..

This is not even the tip of the iceberg of memories, but I have been thinking of tons of them lately.  I just blows my mind for this not to be the norm ya know.

What's time to a Hog?

Growing up we listened to Jerry Clower.  Anyone not familiar with this man has truly missed out.  He was a southern comedian that told stories of a family called the Ledbetters.  If you are familiar with him, then you may have heard the story that the line "What's time to a Hog?" was in.

We have recently changed time-you know the whole Spring Forward Fall Back bull crap.  I love the Fall Back part, who doesn't like an extra hour of sleep.  The spring forward though has been a real heifer this time around though.  It has effected everyone in my house.  The kids aren't even willing to go to sleep till 930, because really it is only 830.  They however do not want to get up at 7 because it is only 6.  We won't even begin to talk about my schedule being so off track that I am up till 11 and in bed till 7, well maybe we will talk about it a little.

It got me thinking yesterday on my way home.  Why do we have to lose an hour?  Where does it go?  There are still 24 hours in a day, no matter what.  I understand that way back when this crap started it was so farmers could have more hours to work in daylight-I get that.  I don't get why I have to lose an hour of sleep.  I don't get enough as is. 

My plan for tonight is to stay up as late as humanly possible--for me that should be about 1130 and I will be dragging.  Then sleep in as late as I can, if I am lucky maybe 8-830. Hopefully. 

It is suppose to be 70something here tomorrow, so I foresee doors open and windows open and music blasting.

The next gneration

This picture has been mentioned in a previous post but I am using it here to prove a point.  See that little mischievous fella up front, the one with the brown hair, that my dears is Lucas.  Even though we are 13 years apart, we are very close.  We have always had more of a brother sister relationship-fighting included. I remember how bad he cried when i left going to college, and remember coming home and he would be sleeping in my bed when I would get home from a date with Hubs.  I remember changing his

diapers, and taking him to school when he was in elementary school.  I remember him being at my house a lot when I was growing up.  He would have worker boy days with my dad, these were days spent working in the yard.  One particular worker boy day, Lucas fell asleep in the bucket of the tractor, I guess my dad worked him to hard :).  You see my parents were like his grandparents.  Always going to school functions and helping with homework, or just being there to lend an ear.  It was just a close knit family situation.  We were blessed to have uncles that were the same way.  If you needed to talk, you called, they listened, gave honest answers, and that is just how it was.  I remember it being very common for Lucas to spend the night with Uncle Edward when he was younger, and riding horses or just whatever.  He went with Uncle Gerald to sales and spent time just being, again that is just how the family was.

Now Lucas is grown, well in the numbers form of grown, he turns 20 in June.  He is a freshman in college and has really changed a lot in the last year.  I guess we all have because of the craptastic year we had.  It hit Lucas really hard though I think. He was home last week over spring break, and I realized, he spent a lot of it at my house.  He hung out with us Saturday night, then again on Tuesday and even helped my kids clean their room.  He then did something that shocked me.  He asked if he could get the kids from school.  So he did, and kept them that afternoon.  Well I get a call on Thursday wanting to know what the kids were doing after school, and he was kind of bummed when I said they had plans. 

It made me stop and think that maybe he is trying to be to my boys what he had growing up.  The more I thought about it, my boys don't have that kind of relationship with any of their uncles.  Don't get me wrong, all of their uncles love them very much, and enjoy spending time with my boys when they can, but they all work and have families of their own. 

We were just lucky, that is really all it boils down to, we were lucky.  We knew and still know that we have family that we mattered to and would make time for us.  They talked with us, told us stories, gave advise, and general life lessons that stuck with us.  They made memories with us that got us through the hard part of loosing them.  We were lucky.  I hope that my kids continue to want to spend time with Lucas and make the memories with him like he got to when he was a kid.  The way it looks right now, I don't think that will be a problem.

Let them eat cake, or pie or pudding

I got a text yesterday that I will admit made my day.  Very simply "what are y'all doing for supper?"  At the time this was received I was searching pinterest to find a way to turn chicken into something awesome.  I said nothing, then get back a happy dance inducing dinner invitation from my Mama.  She ask what sounded good.  The only thought I had was deviled eggs and biscuits, but am pretty sure my kids would not have liked that idea, well the eggs part.  So after some thought it dawns on me, Mother has a charcoal grill.  Beef it is.  So we settle in for hamburger steaks and the fixings.  Then she ask a very tough question....brownies or lemon pies.  *insert Scarlet O'Hara type swoon here*.  While brownies are always a hit, these lemon pies are just, well awesome.  I can't remember what all goes in them but its a cool whip based pie in a graham cracker crust, I mean really how can you go wrong.  So I picked pies just cause, well I can.

I go home and get my gang loaded and head to Mama's and see her grill setting out, I get a little giddy because I know there is a cooked onion waiting inside to go with the hamburger steaks she grilled.  I giggle a little because this grill was one of the spoils of our dumpster diving at the beach last fall.  She has made good use out of it.  The wild ones go in and are excited because they are at Granny's and we are eating (they are boys what do you expect).  We sit down and gorge.  There is no other way to put it, we gorge.

 We clear the table, and I bring out the pie, oh glorious pie.  We eat a slice each, and hubs ask for a second.  Well Thing 1 being his daddy's child ask for another. 

This is the end result, a little boy saying, I should have stopped after the first piece, my eyes are bigger than my belly.

Where as Thing 2, being my child eats his slice then heads to his favorite spot in the house...the couch, with the UNC pillow pet pillow and blanket.







Both slept great last night and were in a full belly type deep sleep.

I have spoiled the last few weeks with dessert at mama's...bread pudding, chocolate cake (after being in the fridge turns into chocolate fudge cake) now lemon pies, all to be culminated at Easter with the first punch bowl cake of the year.  


I get to enjoy some of these goodies again today for lunch...yaaay me :)