Tag: Suz as a kid

The Day I Tried To Eliminate My Remaining Marbles

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz20 Comments

This is a post I wrote in 2009; I stumbled across it recently, read it and had tears streaming down my face. I’m sharing so you can get another glimpse into the Insanity That Is Suzanne.

Random family photo from 2009. I appear to be NORMAL.

It started off as a typical weekend day.
I slept in, then moseyed myself to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
I checked on the girls and they were being typical as well; one on the couch watching TV, one on the computer watching YouTube.
I made our bed; Coach left a few hours earlier for softball practice.

I went out to the backyard and fiddled with my compost.
I found several ant piles en route and went back and treated them.
I cleaned the guest bathroom.

I sent the girls to their rooms to clean. 
I took the dogs out to the driveway to run a bit and get their exercise.


I heard something down the street that sparked a memory. I stopped in my tracks, cocked my head sideways trying to determine if I heard what I thought I heard. It was a familiar sound, but I was not sure it was real. 
It was a sound that I had not heard in many years.

My heart started beating fast.

I was getting a weird feeling in my stomach. My hands and my feet started to tingle.

I didn’t feel right. I was about to lose it.
I had to get the girls’ attention. AND NOW.
I couldn’t be bothered with going back into the garage and through the mudroom door into the house to get them.

I needed them NOW.

I started calling for them from the yard. LoLo…..Linds!!!!!


I ran to Lindsay’s bedroom window and started banging, screaming her name. LINDSAY!


The dogs looked at me like I was a crazy. Little did they know, it would get worse.


LINDSAY!!

Linds pulled the blinds back and looked at me like I was a crazy person. Because I was.
I screamed to her through the window:


THE ICE CREAM MAN IS COMING!!!


She pursed her lips and said: You are lying.
I screamed through the window: 
No, I’m not, he’s really coming…he is coming down our street!
Get out here NOOWWW!!!


In a flash, she came running out the garage with my wallet in hand.
I suppose she believed me now.
Then I looked at her and remembered her sister had been fooling around with a flute earlier; maybe that was what I was hearing. 

Was I overreacting?
Am I really hearing the ice cream truck?

I asked Linds, and she confirmed: Yes, there is a musical vehicle heading this way.
She started jogging down the driveway and then suddenly she put on her brakes and turned back towards the house.

She realized she still had on her Hello Kitty boxer shorts and decided to change.

I almost lost it.

Me: THERE IS NO TIME FOR CHANGING!
She ignored me and ran back into the house.

I just knew she was going to miss this golden opportunity.
It was as if I had injected with a shot of adrenaline; I was crazed.

I started yelling into the house from the garage: Run Run Hurry up Run Linds, HURRY!

By now Lauren heard all the racket, came out and looked at me like I was insane.

Me: Hurry and run down to the street and get an ice cream. 
The ice cream man is coming!!

She stared at me with a fearful expression and went back into the house.


Linds came running back out of the house and I could just now see the front of the ice cream VAN coming into view.
Me: run down there before it passes by!

You would have thought the ice cream man was giving away baby dolphins by the way I reacted to his arrival. 

Linds ran down the driveway, opened the gate and met the ice cream man in the street.


I had such a huge grin on my face by now, satisfied that we DID THIS, but my blood pressure was still very high.
I ran into the house for the camera, knowing that this may never happen again.


Lindsay came back in with her ice cream and we had a good 15 minute laugh about the whole thing. 

I came to my senses and realized what a kook I am and his made me laugh all the more.

We live in a semi-rural area, so I’ve never seen an ice cream truck in our ‘hood. It just doesn’t happen.
They just don’t come around, or if they do, we may be inside and we would never hear them coming.

Later on after the incident Lauren said she thought someone was breaking into the house and I was telling Lindsay to run for her life.

Lindsay told me that the neighbors must think that I am insane; she said I made it sound like someone was chasing her down the street with a knife as I was telling her to Run Run Run.

I explained to the kids that as a child we had the ice cream truck coming by all the time and we could hear it blocks away. We would run from wherever we were playing to our house to find some money to buy said deliciousness.  

Of course we could not hear our parents in the next room telling us to do something, but that truck…that truck was music to our ears.

Then it dawned on me. I really did want an ice cream and in all the craziness, I did not get one.
I called Coach and asked him to pick me up a push-up pop on his way home and he did; no questions asked. Geeze, that was the stressless way to get an ice cream in 2009.
 


When was the last time you bought ice cream from a truck? Did you have the joy of chasing them down as a kid?

Signed, your favorite lunatic.

XOXO

I Asked If You Wanted To *Ask Me Anything* And You Did NOT disappoint. {part 1}

Housekeeping:

Thank you all for the well wishes for AT & UJ and their new home.

Yesterday we went to our friend Jeff’s Mass service. My dear friend Stacy get up in front of everyone and spoke about her husband. Honestly, I could not have gotten up there to speak about HER husband, much less my own. She is incredibly strong. I’m going to try and spend as much time with her and her kids in the coming days as things settle down and they try to acclimate a new normal.

Questions:

I’ll answer a few today and get to the rest soon. We are in the process of ripping out about 1,000 square feet of tile flooring and baseboards with new flooring going in. New full sized washer and dryer on the docket. *cough cough* Already anticipating all the dust. We’ve had to empty a guest room, my office/laundry and I think a toilet will be moved to our pool lanai later today; it’ll all be lovely when it’s finished. We’ve discussed doing this project for a few years, so I’m happy to get it going.

Martha asked where I’ve traveled in my life and what was my best, most memorable trip. Let me start by saying I am a LUCKY girl. Growing up we didn’t have a lot of vacations. A few times my Mom was able to take us to Disney World since it was so close and my sweet Aunt and Uncle took us camping several times up in the mountains of NC. My Dad was quite frugal, so he wouldn’t spring for Disney, he took us to GatorLand Zoo or to the KOA down the street. Which is fine, really, but with his temperament, nothing was ever that enjoyable. But in the past 15 years or so, the Coach and I have been able to travel. Our first BIG trip was to Venice Italy. It was actually a FREE trip that Coach won through one of our cabinet vendors back in the day. It was a magical time for both of us and we met some really fun people, enjoyed amazing food and saw a lot of history; it really felt like walking into a story book. We piggybacked a quick stop in London on our way home, but we were so exhausted and we were on such a limited time that I hardly enjoyed London and I only wanted to sleep.

Some of our other memorable vacations:

Good lawd. I started to link the trips when I realized I am REALLY fortunate. Not too bad for a girl who spent most of her childhood in a trailer park or a bowling alley.

Venice, 2004

I’m reluctant to say what my favorite is, because the Coach wasn’t even with me. But IF you put a gun to my head (why the violence Suz?) I would have to say the trip that Kelly and I took to New Zealand in 2018 was the bomb diggity. We went for 13 days and did a self-driving tour. Talk about an adventure; Suz driving on the wrong side of the road in the wrong side of the car and in an unexpected day-long snow storm. “We’re NOT in Florida anymore.” I really thought we might die and that was only our second or third day there. We saw a good portion of the South Island and ended our tour on the North Island. Glaciers, Kiwi Birds, whales, dolphins, pumpkin soup, wine tours, boat rides, sheep everywhere, gorgeous countryside and delightful people. *sigh* I would love to go back again with the Coach; it was truly an amazing place to visit.

Bijoux asked what has been my worst vacation. Is there such a thing? Well, I suppose if we took a cruise and *someone* accidentally threw me over, well that would be a big suck. I suppose my fiftieth birthday trip to Costa Rica could be considered ‘not perfect’ since hurricane Erma was heading directly towards our house. We were 4 couples all from Florida; the four guys were able to get flights home to prep the houses and the four girls were stuck in an awesome resort for more days than expected. Yeah, it was horrible.

Before Erma tried to steal all my fun

Debra asked What’s your favourite movie? And what movie do you hate? By the way, I love my Canadian friends and their fancy U in favoUrite. I honestly can not pick one movie. But if Deb pointed a gun in my direction and told me to pick ONE it would be: FerrisBuellerUrbanCowbowMrDeedsGreaseSixteenCandlesForrestGumpDirtyDancingWalkTheLineNapoleonDynomiteELFSayAnythingGoodWillHunting.

WHEW, that was a mouthful. I’m NOT a fan of horror movies. If I see something terrible happening, I can NOT forget it. This is why I don’t watch the news. I accidentally watched The Blair Witch Project a long time ago and I can not get it out of my head, especially when I’m taking out the garbage at night. I watched scary movies as a child and it’s probably why I’m slightly demented.

River asked About available guest rooms at our GA house. We actually had 3 guest rooms when we purchased it, as of our last visit we have four; we converted a workout room and workshop into a guest suite. Does it look like we need an exercise room? I mean, does it look like we WANT an exercise room? I’ve been meaning to post about how sweet the rooms are, but I’m not 100% done with them yet. But for River, you can visit before I’m finished, just leave the garden-eating wood chucks at home. Here are two of them.

  • The Double Room AKA The Deer Room
  • The second Master AKA The Bear Room

Nance asked What is your favourite children’s book? Is it one you loved as a child, or is it one you loved sharing with your own children? I only remember a few that I loved myself; one being Charlottes Web and I still have it. a few favorites that I read to the girls are: Is Your Mama A Llama? The Runaway Bunny, (still brings tears to my eyes) The Adventures of Frog And Toad, Little Bear and all the Dr. Seuss books. The Coach and I still quote some of the Dr. Seuss one-liners. I’ve saved ALL Of these to read to my future grandchildren. *Hint Hint* In case anyone wants to accidentally get pregnant after October 23rd of this year.

I’ll finish the rest of the questions in a few days. This was fun; thanks for motivating me!

XO

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz28 Comments

Revisiting The Baby Book

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz27 Comments

In honor of Mother’s Day, I thought I’d revisit a story about Bev; I shared this on the blog shortly after she passed away. I know she was laughing her heavenly azz off.

My Mother was a very special kind of Mom.  She was the kind that loved us immensely, but also thought we could figure things out ourselves; you know, the opposite of today’s helicopter parenting ways.

  • She was the Mom who worked long/late hours as a waitress after my parents divorced.
  • She was the Mom that laughed a lot, but also the kind that yelled when her kids were slobs. And we were.
  • She was the Mom that didn’t really teach her kids how to NOT be slobs, but expected us to know this.
  • She was the Mom that filled out every page of the baby book given to her when her babies were born.

Wait. WHAT? I meant to say is she was the kind that filled out every page of the baby book given to her when her FIRST child was born; you remember him, Mark the most beautiful child on the planet.

       Here is the first of many pages filled out  in Mark’s book.

                       There is a family tree for Mark. 

Here is Suzanne’s first page of vital information. 

 Here is a family tree for Suzanne to cherish for the rest of her life.

You can’t read invisible ink either?

Actually when I found this completely blank book after she’d passed away in 2015, I had a really good laugh.  

The fact that she’d kept the book for 48 years was astonishing. 48 YEARS. I know she was laughing with me. 

Hey, she was busy for those entire 48 years; it’s not like she wasn’t gonna get to it.  Right?   

Although, I was pretty excited to see that I did get mentioned in Mark’s book for his Fifth Christmas. 

                                                                           

New sister is Suzanne.

Beverly, I wasn’t THAT new; I was 3 months old and I did have a name.  Gosh I wish she were here when I found this; we could’ve laughed about this one forever.

I miss you Bev!

{The poll was a flop, I couldn’t get it to work properly, so it’s GONE}

And in case you’re wondering, I finished the baby books for both of my girls. What can I say? I was an overachiever when it came to Mothering.

Happy Mother’s Day to all my mothering Friends; whether you are mothering humans, critters, or friends. Taking care of other’s makes the world a better place.

XOXO