November the Oneth

It's that time of year again....It's getting cooler out....sunset comes much earlier.....thank goodness i say! ....now i don't have to be up half the night to take sunset pictures....In my humble opinion it is the only GOOD reason to have winter...

I'm sure that no one has ever heard me say how much i hate to be cold....(insert dramatic smirk here)...how much i hate winter....if my sisters were to think of it they would remember i spent way less time outside in winter then they did...I was more likely to be found sitting on the fireplace blistering the skin on my back with the heat of the fire or playing Scrabble, Yahtzee or Canasta with mom & grandma in the kitchen...(stopping my typing for a few moments and remembering....)

or I would be up sitting next to grandma on her bed doing a circle the word book.....i cannot begin to tell you how many hours i spent doing circle word books with my grandmother...i loved the time I spent with grandma...and if ever Grandma was upset with me she would not allow me to come up when i asked...I can remember a few times that grandma wouldn't let me come up and i can remember sitting on the bottom step leading up to her room and crying because she said no....i thought my heart had broken into a million pieces for sure....You can bet that when grandma finally allowed me back upstairs to sit next to her i tried my damnedest to never ever have her be upset with me again...there were very few times she ever said no to me...

Another 'thing' about grandma that always made me smile as it did with all of her grandchildren is that she loved Tigger....yup Tigger from Winnie the pooh...we would ask her every day "Grandma, where's tigger today"....she would give us his location every day... some days he would be walking in the woods...others he would be in china or Hawaii ....she would tell us that he was doing a Chinese dragon dance or dancing with hula hula girls....to this day if i see a hula girl on someones dashboard i think of tigger doing the hula with the beautiful Hawaiian women...Other days she would say to us didn't you see him today?? He was in school with you today....

This time of year always brings back many memories to me even though I always hated the fact that this meant winter snow and freezing cold were soon to follow. But before the time of year that i really dislike comes it's THE HOLIDAYS!!!! To us the holidays started the weekend before opening day of hunting season...That's when Aunt Ruth and Uncle Frank came up from Long Island! For as long as i can remember they came up for hunting season. Aunt Ruth was my grandmother's sister so she was actually my Great Aunt....All four of us kids loved them soooooo much...we knew Warren was Uncle Frank's favorite but they were always so wonderful to us we really didn't care....

The first day of hunting season was known as "Deer Day..." yup, that's what school called it...they stopped fighting all the bus drivers and just closed school on opening day...if school didn't close on that day all the bus drivers would call in sick..school would end up delayed or closed anyways.... These days i do believe they call it Superintendents Conference day...

One of their traditions of coming up was to bring Entenmann's crumb cakes with them...you would have thought that they brought solid gold with them...we all loved them....back then it was more like the ultimate crumb of today....I do believe that in the late 60s and 70s it was not as easy to find Entenmann's cakes upstate.

Somewhere on one of the discs of scanned pictures i have here are pictures of mom, Aunt Ruth & grandma Rene playing cards in the kitchen and "playing their instruments" ((the tinfoil, paper towel card board, spatula guitar)) and singing silly songs...One of the ones i remember them dissolving into laughter that left them gasping for air is I'll call it 'Roll me over' I don't know if i ever knew the real name it goes something like this:

Roll me over in the clover
RRRRRRRoooooollllllll me over..
lay me down do it again

This is number oneand we're going to have some fun
Roll me over in the clover
Rrrrrrroooollllll me over..
lay me downdo it again

This is number two
I forgot to tie my shoe
Roll me over in the clover
Rrroooooooollllll me over..
lay me downdo it again

This is number threeI got to take a pee
Roll me over in the clover
Rrrrrrooooolllllll me over..
lay me down do it again

and the song would go on... over and over different words most times but always filled with with tons of laughter....my son has said to me a zillion times "Where do you get this stuff from?" I laugh and most of the time he knows the answer "Nana"... But it isn't just Nana it's part of my life....it's who i am....

So now as the holidays are upon us I just want to remind everyone to hold those you love for that extra second....cherish everyone..... soak up the memories...the traditions... the laughter....