Just to Recap....

The Weekend Before Christmas Eve:

We made it through Christmas with just a few minor issues...the biggest being the FLOOD!! We should be used to it by now but it still is a shock to see how far the water can go when it overflows its banks. 

 It didn't used to flood this often or this badly but some years back the city decided to add a new subdivision in what was an area that the river would run into when it rained a lot.  And if that wasn't enough, then they built a WalMart on the other side of town in another area that the river favored when the banks would overflow.  You can tell from these pictures where the river now has decided to go.  All the additions including a new highway south of town has just made it so much worse for the residents of our little town.  So now, usually once or twice a year, this is what we have to put up with.

And then the waters receded....
 
And then came Christmas Eve:
 

We had a wonderful family Christmas Eve at my son and daughter-in-law's house and all but 7 of our family were able to make it.  Just thought I'd show off my family to my readers.

 

                               I am so proud to be the matriarch of this wonderful bunch of kids. 
 Looking Back:

Usually looking back at the end of the year means you're going back over the past 12 months and all that has stood out as important.  But I'd like to do something a little different.  A friend posted some pictures that brought back a lot of memories and I thought I'd share them. 

Are you old enough to remember any of these?

 Back in the 50's my mother would put my hair up in pin curls.  But it took so long that I'd get antsy and would wiggle around on the stool.  Eventually Mom would get ticked off and throw the hairbrush.  And every time she did, it broke.

We went through a lot of hairbrushes when I was little.

When I was in Jr. High (early 60's) my girlfriend and I would go to the local skating rink. 

It was the same rink my parents used to skate at  back in the 40's.  Mom and Dad were quite the skating couple. 

They did all that fancy stuff where Dad would pick Mom up over his head while skating around and they'd do tricks.  Too bad I didn't get to see that.  But I could imagine it.

A little secret that no one else knows?  That same girlfriend and I would sometimes collect tiny little toads and have races with them.  I know...it has nothing to do with skating....just a random thought that came into my eclectic brain.

Does anyone remember these?  Metal glasses.  We had a set exactly like this when I was growing up.  I loved having Pepsi with lots of ice in mine. 

In fact, I liked these glasses so much that when I saw them in a retro catalog a few years ago, I had to have them.  I still love drinking Pepsi with lots of ice in them...haha



When I was in high school, in the 60's, this was the only way to dry hair. 

You had to roll your hair in curlers, usually big ones, then sit with this contraption on your head with the heat swirling around inside, probably causing brain damage...at least in my case... 

One Saturday I was getting ready to go out and meet some friends and I was in a hurry.  I had my bath ready (we didn't have a shower, just an old claw foot bathtub) and my hair was washed and set in curlers.  I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone so I put on the hair dryer and stepped into the tub. 

The shock I felt jolted through my entire body and I instinctively yanked off the dryer and threw it across the room.  What was I thinking? 

I guess I thought because the cap was plastic and the wires in the tube were covered in plastic, I would be safe.  Or more likely,  I just didn't think at all.  Yea, that's probably the real answer.

 This was the first job I had.  Yep, I was a car hop.  I hooked the tray with the food and drinks on the windows of cars.  No, I didn't have roller skates or sing or dance.  I just delivered food.  But I enjoyed it. 

We have a root beer stand, the BK, in our town where they still use these trays on the window and the root beer comes in icy glasses.

When I got a little older and started having my kids, we still used cloth diapers that had to be folded to fit the baby.  And then we used these horrible torture devices they called diaper pins.  I stuck my poor babies more times then I can count. 

My first 3 children all got poked with the pins but by the time my 4th child was born, someone had invented disposable diapers.  She lucked out...she just never realized it.



And my last little memory that I'm sharing today is one that I'm almost embarrassed to admit to.

 If you're too young to remember this, it is a tape recorder.  You could either put in a blank tape and record on it or you could put in a tape that had stuff on it and listen to it.  I was on the road every day with my job and would think of all kinds of things I wanted to remember.  So my Dad bought me a smaller version of this so I could talk into it and play it back when I was at home.  But the tape was tiny so I either had to erase what was on it to reuse it or buy more tapes.

That was many years ago.  I haven't had a tape recorder since.

One day, a couple years ago, I decided I needed one again so I went to Best Buy and asked the young sales clerk where I could find a tape recorder.  He had no idea what I was talking about.  So I had to describe what I wanted it for...to take with me in the car, to talk into while I was driving and to listen to when I got home.  Oh, he said, you mean a voice recorder.  A what?  He showed me what he had and guess what?  No tapes...and it fit in my hand...but I guess I'm the only one that didn't know that.

And that's the end of my little trip down memory lane.  If you're old enough to remember any of these I hope the pictures brought back memories for you like they did for me.


Quotes of the Day:

"Remember, if Christmas isn’t found in your heart, you won’t find it under a tree.”
~ Charlotte Carpenter

“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.”   ~  Karl Lagerfeld

If you don't do anything stupid when you're young, you won't remember something funny when you're old.  ~  Unknown

“We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.” ~ Jeremy Irons