2 Deaths And a Bad Fall In The Family

I haven't been at this site much lately because I've been kind of depressed about a few awful things that have happened over the past few month. My Aunt Dorothy died at the beginning of February and a few weeks ago my Uncle Mike also passed away. They are both my Dad's siblings. And last week my Mom fell three times and on the third one wound up breaking her collarbone. She is in a special rehabilitation unit of the hospital now. I just found out today that this is not covered under charity care, only Medicare so we are responsible for 20% of the bill. My mom has so many medical bills as is. I feel so guilty for being mad at her because the reason that she fell was because she overdid it on her as needed meds which she has been doing for many years. It is hard focusing on much of anything even reading blogs and doing posts because of all of this stress. I will try to get back into doing both sometime soon. I miss my friends here.

The top photo is of mom and I at the Danbury Depot Restraunt in the Poconos PA in 1994. The one of Uncle Mike is from the Christmas of 1980 and that's my Aunt Dorothy at my 8th grade graduation party in 1983. I feel so terrible because I didn't really associate with Dad's side of the family much after my parent's divorce in the early 1990s. I only saw them a little in the mid 90's and a few times after that. Uncle Mike was in the VA hospital for many years. He would send me a Christmas card with money in it every year. I wish that I had been closer to them. I have some good memories of them from my childhood like getting to go to movies for free because my aunt worked at the theater and Uncle Mike teaching us lessons like look both ways before you cross the street and don't sit too close to the TV because it will ruin your eyes.

Easter 1975

The first photo is of my brother, Uncle Mike, Suzy and I from around Eastertime. We would only get to see our friends Suzy and Jenny from Pennsylvania 3 or 4 times a year when they visited their grandparents who were our neighbors. Easter egg dyeing with that Paas kit was so much fun. My favorite color egg to make was always purple. I'm wearing one of my favourite childhood dresses. It's so cool that we were both wearing hats that year. I haven't worn a dressy hat since that decade, I think. Well, maybe once or twice in the 80's. We are with Grandma in her apartment which is right next door to ours and with Dad on our front steps. These are the only 4 photos we have from that year, I wish that they had taken one of us with mom too.

Easter Memories

I loved Easter time as a kid. Decorating the house, dyeing and searching for the eggs, the candy, the meal and being with friends and family was always so special and fun. We would have ham, keilbasa, farmers cheese, babka, potato salad and coleslaw and of course eggs for an early dinner. These photos are from 1981. My Ginger pup managed to get in the background in 2 of them. We usually spent most of the day next door at our grandma's house. That's where we are in 3 of the pictures. The one with Mom, Mark and I is in front of our place. Grandma got us the bunnies that we are holding in the photo with our friends Suzy and Jenny. I remember how excited we were to finally have candy after giving it up for Lent sometimes during our school days. We loved the Gertrude Hawk brand candy that we would order through our school fund raising back then. A white chocolate cross and peanut butter filled and regular chocolate Smidgens were always a part of it.

Happy Easter

I made this picture in 1985 based on a set of placemats that a friend of the family gave us in the late 1970s. Originally I did one in 1979 or 1980 but I foolishly used it as part of a project for Spanish. The teacher liked it alot and kept it hanging in the classroom for several weeks. I should have asked for it back. Mom liked my redo enough to put it in a frame. I should have retaken this photo though- I didn't notice how badly it turned out in the one spot. I haven't been able to spend much time on the computer lately but hopefully will get to do more reading and commenting on blog posts soon. My uncle just died last week and my mom is in the hospital because she fell and broke her collarbone yesterday. I hope that everyone has a very Happy Easter.

My Handmade Easter Decorations

I made these and other Easter decorations sometime in the early 1980s. I used to have so much fun making decorations and also decorating for holidays, especially Easter and Christmas. I haven't decorated for Easter in a very long time though - the late 80's. I was looking through all of our decorations last month and thought about putting them up this year but haven't really felt like doing so. I do have some of my bunnies and lambs beanie babies on the shelf in my room though and was going to put some of mom's Easter type stuffed animals on the shelf in the living room but haven't yet and probably won't which I feel a little bad about. I just can't seem to get into the holidays like I did when I was younger.

My View Master

I can't believe that I forgot that I had The Rescuers for my View Master. Sleeping Beauty was one of my favourite Disney films when I was a kid. I thought that I had the Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear one but it was in with my brother's toys. I had not looked in these totes for many years. I didn't see his actual View Master in his tote, I don't know why he would've kept the slides and not that, unless he has another toy tote somewhere. We also have Scenic Wonders of America and Mark has Star Trek which I forgot to include in this post. The Civil War ones must've been our Dad's because that was his area of interest.

Our Mookie

I keep writing about our Buffy pup and feel bad that I have only mentioned our Mookie a little bit and that was a while ago. This picture is from 1993. She looks so adorable. We got her in October 1992 from friends of the family who already had 4 doggies and someone had given them Mookie because they didn't want her anymore. At first I didn't really like her because I didn't want another doggie, not after what had happened to my Ginger 6 years earlier but eventually I grew to love her too. She is a terrier, Llhasa Apso mix. She was about 2 years old here and we had her until 2005 when she got so sick that we had to have her put to sleep. She was a very playful doggie and loved her stuffed llama and football.

Buffy Memories 2

Poor Buffy - she really needed under her eyes to be cleaned here. I had 2 containers of eye cleansing pads ordered from a catalog and feel bad that I didn't use them that much on her. She didn't mind when I did unlike my other dog Mookie who did not like this at all. Doesn't she look so cute in her little bed? We got that when she was a puppy on the day that we adopted her into our family. We probably could've gotten her a bigger one when she grew up but she just loved sleeping in that one so we didn't. I just had to put that bow on her head that Christmas of 1998, she was like a present from God that year and I'm so glad that we found her. Mom and I were talking about how very much that we missed her yesterday so I just had to do a post about her today.

Handmade Sweaters

Mom used to knit me sweaters. I wish that I had kept all of them, at least I have photos of some. Boy did I have big eyeglass frames in that top photo from 1988. The blue sweater in the 2nd one from 1980 was always my favourite. She also knitted this pattern in different colours for my 2 friends. I remember the burgandy turtleneck one being very soft yarn. The tan one was my 1988 birthday gift. I did keep the peach sweater the longest up until about 1997. We still have some of the patterns that she used. She tried teaching me to knit but it was too hard for me and I gave up on this. She made mittens for me and my friends for my birthday party in the early 80's and a few clothes for my dolls in the 70's too.

My Screw-ups 1

I bought this souvenier book at Disney World in 1983 and recently took it out of my keepsake tote to both look through it and photograph it for my blog. I hadn't seen it since the early 1990s so it was fun doing this. I thought that I had been very careful when putting it away only the next time that I went into that tote for something else I discovered something very upsetting - when I had put my scrapbook binder back in there the cover and first few pages of this book had fallen down and gotten ruined by that binder. I had this for all these years and it was in perfect condition and now it looks pretty bad as you can probably tell by the top photo. Originally I had scanned it for here. I know that I shouldn't beat myself up about this screw up but it's very hard not to because it seems like I am always doing something stupid even when I am trying to be so careful. It's like my brain is incapable of learning from my mistakes which is very frustrating.

Polish Girl

We had an International Day at my grade school. We got to dress up in outfits of our nationality and bring in food for a special lunch in the cafeteria. I don't remember what mom made - probably stuffed cabbage. This was either in 3rd or 4th grade. I still have the Poland sash. I wish that I had that cute outfit that she made me too. I am mostly Polish but also have some Ukranian from my Dad's side and a bit of English and French from Mom's side. I think that my great, great grandparents were the first to come to America. I never really talked to my parents about my heritage. I only know like 4 or 5 Polish words. We used to get delicious pierogies from a carnival at a church that our family friend went to. At Easter we always get babka. I really enjoy that bread but there seems to be less raisins in it than there used to be. My brother gets the kielbasa which I used to like but haven't since the early 90s.

1970s McDonald's Plates

My Aunt and Uncle got me these McDonald's plates in the mid or late 70's. All their kids worked there at one time or another throughout the 1970s and 1980s. I remember them having alot of the collectible glasses on the shelves like the Peanuts. My family didn't really go there that much, we were more into Burger King, Roy Rogers and Wendy's.

My Stuffed Animals 2

I still have the teddy bear that I got for my first birthday in December of 1970. I am glad that we kept that and also the tiger which is my mom's. I think she got it in 1968 or 1969. We have a picture of it from when I was a baby that I also scanned but can't seem to find. I must've put it in the wrong folder on my computer. Which stuffed animal or toys do you still have from your childhood?

Dark Chocolate - Yummy!

I saw a report on the news yesterday that Hershey's is raising the price of their candy by 10% soon. It seems like the cost just went up a little not that long ago. I have a bit of dark chocolate at lunchtime everyday. I have loved it since I first had a Special Dark miniature in the mid 1970s. These are some of my favourites. I forgot to include the Kisses in this photo though. I usually save the Choxie mint truffle bar (from Target) and Lindt Lindor truffles for the weekend. I recently got three Dove bars for only about 30 cents after the sale price and coupon. I'm sure that the other candy companies will be increasing their prices too.