Month: July 2019

The chain in the tank to my toilet flusher broke last night. Sean was at work and worked until late and he was still sleeping this morning. My Mom pulled the lid to the tank of my toilet off so she would be able to flush it. I started to laugh and told her about a memory that just popped into my head.

The spring semester before my senior year as an undergrad, I figured out that if I took 23 credits in the following summer semester and then took 12 credits in the fall, student taught in the winter, and took three classes the next summer, I would be able to get a full-time paying, “Big Girl job” for the 2005-2006 school year so Sean and I could move out of my Parents’ house I discussed my plan regarding the school credits with my Mom. I explained how it would fit in with my plan to be out of my Parents’ house before Sean started kindergarten.

I remember thinking I was going to die halfway through that summer semester before my senior year. It worked out that I took 12 credits and then 11 credits in two 7 week “mini-sessions” in the summer semester. My Mom and I discussed that we would NOT tell my Dad my plan and that he would think that I was just taking a normal 12 credits in the summer.

My Dad died not knowing any of this. So, Sean and I moved into our apartment on August 1, 2005. I think it was a week later that I had three classes in another, “Mini-session during the summer semester just after I had already walked for my undergraduate graduation. (I was in a wheelchair because I had broken my ankle while student teaching). The infamous graduation picture that we will re-create at Sean’s graduation:

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The maintenance manager came to our apartment to fix the broken chain on the toilet in our first apartment that caused it to run continuously when Sean came home from my Parents’ house. So here Sean was, three years old, and there was a strange man with his hands in our toilet. He was extremely confused! I told Sean that he was our very own, “Higglytown hero”:

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There was a show that Sean watched it at my Parents’ house on Disney Junior. They were Russian dolls

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and the show was about all of the trades people who help them solve whatever was wrong. They were mail carriers, plumbers, electricians, etc.

I remember Sean relaxing when I told him about the stranger being, “Our very own Higglytown hero and I remember that Ed (The maintenance manager) was weirded out because he thought I said, “Uglytown” so I had to explain the show to him. I haven’t thought about, “Our very own Higglytown hero” in years! This all happened about 14 years ago… All of this because the chain in my toilet tank broke.

My niece, Alyssa, has been stopping by my house for a few days now. She is just going to be starting high school so she can’t drive yet. After we hang out for a while, my Mom drives her to gymnastics. She is an excellent gymnast who has been doing it for most of her life!

I love speaking with her because, like me, she loves to read! I had so much fun speaking with her about books today and we figured out that we have similar tendencies when it comes to reading. I told her it’s because we are both, “Rios girls.” We both laughed at things we do that in are similar like we both love the smell of books and putting the bookmark in your book and then turning the book over so you are staring at the top of it to see how much you have read. She does the same thing!

My Mom recently bought me a bookmark that sits in a book that is taking me a really long time to read! I use my friend’s Christmas card from last year where it shows pictures of her kids as my other, “Bookmark.” I received a book in the mail yesterday and I needed to find a third, “Bookmark.“

I looked around my living room to see some sort of paper to use as my new, “Bookmark.” The picture of my Dad and me and my high school graduation is my new bookmark! I am ABSOLUTELY loving the book I got in the mail yesterday! I have been reading it all day long!

Every so often though, I have to put the picture of my Dad and me into the book and close it to give my eyes a little rest. MS really stinks! I only give myself some time until the green leopard print fades before I can pick up the book again! This is really a, “Win-Win” situation though! Each time I pick up at the book to begin reading again, I get to see the picture of my Dad and me at my high school graduation that I just ran across a few days ago!

Each time I place the picture back into the book, you KNOW I have to turn it over so I can see the top and see how far I have read! Just like Alyssa! That makes me smile! I only wish I could read the book faster!

My son has a TON of cowlicks in his hair. Because of this fact, I have always kept his hair short after he got in his first haircut. Before then however, I appreciated his, “Bed head” and thought it was absolutely adorable! When Sean and I had our first apartment when he was three, we would go over to my Parents’ house for breakfast sometimes on the weekend. Once we get there, my Mom would ask me if I combed his hair that morning. I would shake my head and tell her that it was, “So darn cute!“ as my mom would comb his hair to make it neater.

Sean has always had a short haircut. In the summers, I was a bit lenient because I felt that it, “Was just hair.” Sean has sported mohawks in the summer and I would have his head shaved a little bit before school started. His hair grows pretty fast!

For his entire life up until this point, he is pretty much kept it short. In the high school, he let the top grow out a little bit but still kept the fade tight around his ears and on his neck. When he was in first grade, he told me that he wished that he had hair that grows, “down” (like his friends) opposed to hear that grows, “up.” Hence, the short hair.

That is until THIS summer! My son has not to cut his hair since just before prom and that was in mid May. His hair has gotten pretty long and because it is so long, it DOES grow, “down” now. A few days ago, I told him that I didn’t like it. I told him that it made him BOT look like my little baby because his hair was so long!

This morning, my mom was affixing my tens unit onto my knee and we do that in my bathroom. Sean was in the kitchen making himself some breakfast. He told us that we keep my house too cold but that is how it is! It’s better for me to be cold then too warm! So Sean got a shirt from his bedroom because he said he was freezing. He stopped at the bathroom door to ask if the shirt was too small on him. When he walked over, I got a look at his, “Bed head.”

I started to laugh and told him that the shirt looks fine on him and kept laughing. He asked me why I was laughing and I told him he looks like, “The guy from ‘Flock of Seagulls.’”

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The front of his hair is not that long but the sides stuck up just like this picture! I kept laughing and laughing! Once I showed him the picture, he looked at himself in the mirror and called me a, “Bully!” Which just made me laugh harder!

He does have senior pictures this year and I am hoping to get them done in the summer before school starts so it is a little bit cheaper. I’m not sure what he will do with hair athen but in the meantime, I will tell him every time he wakes up with hair like that not that it’s, “So darn cute” but that he looks like, “The guy from ‘Flock of Seagulls.’”

Maybe I am a, “Bully!” But I still think it really DOES look, “So darn cute!”

This morning, I sat in my kitchen as I sipped my Kiefer and my Mom sipped her coffee. That was probably the BEST purchases I have made! I bought a Keurig for my house. I don’t drink coffee and I think the smell of it is just disgusting but my, “2 Sacreds” (Sean and my Mom) drink it.

I knew that I could never pay for a house that smelled like coffee so getting a coffee brewer was not an option. Once Sean started drinking coffee, I bought and put a Keurig in my kitchen. It only smells while the coffee is brewing the one cup but I can handle that when they leave and my kitchen airs out.

So I sat in my kitchen by the stove and drank my Kiefer as my Mom made her coffee and drank it. We have kind of been dawdling a bit before we start our morning routine to get me ready for the day.and I had moved on to drink my protein shake when my Mom said that she wanted to pay a bill and then we could start right after. It would only take 10 minutes.

Now, my Mom is NOT adept at online payments for bills and chooses to make a phone call and speak to people. She refuses to learn how to pay bills online and would rather wait to speak to a person. She told me it would be very quick to which I responded, “Chure!”

I immediately gasped and exclaimed, “I miss you, Daddy!” My Dad used to say, “Chure” To my Mom when he didn’t believe what she was saying was true. For example, my Mom telling me that she could pay her bill very quickly was a lie and I knew it! If my Dad were here, he would have responded to her with, “Chure!”

I finished drinking my protein shake and left the room to put my contacts in as my Mom got on the phone to pay the bill. I was correct that it took longer than 10 minutes but not as long as it normally does. Saying that to my Mom and just like my Dad used to has made me miss him SO MUCH today but that is pretty much every day…

Pictures have always been important to me! I think that if my life and circumstances were different, if I were an able-bodied person, I would very much enjoy taking pictures for fun! I always thought that maybe I could do some kind of side work as a photographer or something…

For Father’s Day, I decorated a frame that holds a picture of me giving my Dad a kiss on his cheek in my high school’s cafeteria during my ring day ceremony. I remember really liking the picture and a member of the yearbook team, gave the picture to me because she thought I would like it. I can’t really remember giving it to my Dad for Father’s Day because he would have just had surgery but there was evidence of this on the back. I always date the back of the picture I give to people.

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I was thinking about this picture and the frame I made for my Dad that now sits on a shelf with a bunch of pictures in my Mom’s living room. Not too long ago, I asked her for the picture. My Mom brought it over and I thought to change my profile picture on Facebook for Father’s Day but I wasn’t feeling too well so I didn’t.

Sean noticed that the picture frame was on the desk under my TV that usually has a bunch of pictures which are in a box in the basement. He brought another picture frame out of his room. He said something like, “Oh, we’re putting out our family pictures now?” He placed a framed picture of his great-grandma and him that we gave to his great grandma one summer. The frame was at her funeral. Sean asked if he could take the frame home with him and he was told that he could.

I noticed that there was a small picture taped onto the corner of the picture frame. It was of his great-grandpa that he used for a timeline we made when he was in first grade. So there were two picture frames on either end of the desk under my television. They were of my Dad, Sean’s great grandma, and Sean‘s great grandpa. All three of these people have passed.

Sean put this picture of his great-grandma on the desk under my TV just before he left for school. So both of these picture frames have been in my living room for a while. Not too long ago, when Sean came home, I told him that both his great-grandma and his great-grandpa were staring at me all day. He asked me if I wanted him to take the Picture away and put it back into his room. I looked at him a little bit aghast and told him that “I loved them too!”

They are not my relatives but I would take Sean to their house often when they lived in Deerborn and Sean was still in a car seat carrier. I took Sean over to Canada to their condo that they had there. His great-grandparents also took me out to eat for my 24th birthday. Just me and them. We went to Olive Garden and they still clearly remember that dinner! I met both of them before Sean was born, even before I was pregnant with him.

I have recently found myself staring back at both of them and reminiscing of times I spent with them and drinking Vernor’s. It got me thinking. I always date pictures when I give people frames that have a picture. A few days ago, I grabbed that picture frame and opened it up. Well, at least I can say that I am consistent:

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Once I found out that I had written on the back of the picture, I began to cry. Both of these pictures have my rating on them, back when I could still write. I appreciate both of these pictures and I am not in a hurry to move them. These pictures make me think fondly of all of them.