Category Archives: Time Travel Tuesday

Time Travel Tuesday: Salvation Edition

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My Life as Annie hosts Time Travel Tuesday in which we look back at some time in our lives in relation to the topic of the week. Annie asks, ”
This week I decided we should revisit our time of salvation, or a special time in your spiritual life. Was there a moment when you became a Christian, or did it take a while? Can you remember that special time in your life?”

My testimony was one of the first posts on my blog, and when I figured out how to make “pages” (listed across the top of my blog), I made a page for that there so that people who visited could easily see it and click on it if they wanted to, because one of my desires in making a blog was to be a witness to people. I thought about writing a shorter version here, but since I thought it through carefully and wrote it out there, if you don’t mind, I am going to refer you there: here’s the link.

Time Travel Tuesday: Cooking Experiences

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My Life as Annie hosts Time Travel Tuesday in which we look back at some time in our lives in relation to the topic of the week. Last week I suggested our first cooking experiences might be a fun topic, and Annie graciously decided to use that idea for this week’s theme. Thanks, Annie!

I don’t remember exactly what my first cooking experiences were — I think I received a Girl Scouts cooking badge. But the first thing I remember cooking was fried chicken when I was maybe 11 or 12 or so. I must have had some experience with it before this — I can’t imagine starting out with this on my own! But for some reason I was cooking fried chicken with a friend — and we were so afraid of the hot oil that we’d drop the chicken in and then run to the back door. That sounds like a disaster in the making, doesn’t it? But somehow we avoided setting the house on fire or burning ourselves. I also remember making oatmeal cookies with a friend — it called for brown sugar and we didn’t have any, so we just used regular white sugar (I didn’t know then about the emergency substitution section in most cookbooks). The cookies all ran together — it looked something like those pizza-pan sized cookies you can get at the Chocolate Chip Cookie Factory, only they didn’t have those then, so we couldn’t claim we were imitating them. 🙂 They tasted good — they just didn’t hold a cookie shape.

I also remember now being younger than this and roasting a hot dog over the flame of a gas stove with a fork.

By the time I got married, I had been cooking for my family of 8 for a while — I would usually at least get dinner started before my mom came home from work — so having to take on meal preparation wasn’t that big a leap for me. I do remember when we were dating and both in the dorms, we didn’t have access to ovens, so a popular thing to make for one’s boyfriend was one of those boxed cheesecake mixes. Often at dinnertime you’d see a girl going to meet her guy with a cheesecake she’d made, and I do remember making those for Jim on occasion. I don’t remember what the first meal was that I cooked for Jim, but I remember a couple of early cooking disasters. Gravy was something that took me years to learn. I do fine with it now — though we pretty much only have home-made gravy when we have turkey. But my first attempts were awful. I remember one time getting my electric hand-held mixer out and “beating” the gravy right in the pan to try to smooth it out. Another time, the texture was ok, but it was really, really light. I thought I had read somewhere that red plus green made brown, so I put a few drops of red and green food coloring in. It turned very green, and nothing I tried made it look a normal color. For some reason, instead of dissolving in tears I started laughing hysterically, then Jim came in to see what was going on. I couldn’t make myself eat it — the color was just too awful. But we joked about green gravy for years, and for years I also kept a jar of ready-made gravy in the cabinet “just in case” mine didn’t turn out.

Another time I was making popcorn the old fashioned way in a saucepan with some oil in it (this was before the days of microwave popcorn. They had then these big popcorn poppers usually with a yellow plastic domed lid — but we didn’t have one). I had a little can of popcorn that I thought was enough for one batch. I was talking with Jim while I made it, and he saw me dump the whole little can in and knew it was too much, but just sat back to watch what happened. Blissfully unaware, I kept talking and shaking the pan back and forth — when suddenly popcorn erupted over the sides of the pan and spilled everywhere. I don’t remember exactly how I reacted — I’ll have to ask him — I think I just said “Oh! Oh!” He did help me clean it up, after he stopped laughing at me. 😀

Updated: I am adding this in after my initial post because I just remembered it. 🙂 Once in our early married years, when I was trying to be the frugal Mrs. Housewife, I discovered rutabaga was only 19 cents a pound. I had never made or even seen it before. But I got some and came home and looked in my cookbooks to see how to make it. There was a recipe to include it in mashed potatoes and another recipe with apples. So I made the mashed potatoes — and the rutabagas turned them kind of an orange color, but they tasted ok. The apple dish was “ok” but not spectacular. When my husband came home, he noticed the mashed potatoes were off-color, but he was trying to be polite and not say anything, while I was anxiously awaiting his comments. Finally I asked him how he liked the potatoes. He cautiously said, “What’s different about them?” I told him about the rutabagas — and he was thoroughly grossed out. That’s one of the few things that he just thoroughly cannot stand. When I mentioned that the apple dish I had made for dessert had rutabagas, too, he said, “Oh, no, not the apples, too!” So — no more rutabagas for this household, no matter how cheap they are. 🙂

You can read more “time travels” back to early cooking experiences at Annie’s today. Feel free to share yours, too, and add the link in there!

Time Travel Tuesday: Vacation Memories

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The topic for this week’s Time Travel Tuesday, created and hosted by My Life as Annie, is “Vacation Memories.” Annie asks:

We are traveling back (in our minds) to vacations… either a favorite one, or most memorable.
Do you have any special vacation memories? Where did you go? Did you camp out, or stay in a hotel?

Some of you who read here regularly will have seen a little of this in a childhood meme a few weeks ago.

I don’t remember that we actually went on vacations except to visit relatives. I don’t remember going to amusements parks as a family: my first memory of a hotel was during my high school senior trip.

When we did visit relatives, we usually went to see my father’s mother and brother who lived in LA (we lived “next door” in TX). The thing I loved about that particular uncle was that, of his 5 kids, 3 were girls close to my age and all of our birthday were in August. One was a year older than me, one was the same age I was, and the other was a year younger. I remember once we celebrated all of our birthdays at once with a big party complete with relay games. I think that was the first time I ever had a big party like that.

My father’s mother, affectionately nicknamed Nannie, had children in TX, LA, and AL and she would drive around to visit them all. We used to call her the Galloping Grandma. 🙂 There were a few times she took me with her, and I enjoyed traveling with her.

Other than that, if we went anywhere it was to the beach. I grew up in Corpus Christi, TX, and we made multitudes of excursions to Padre Island. Camp-outs, cookouts, birthday parties — a lot of that kind of thing happened there, besides just regular Saturdays at the beach. We moved from there when I was 13, and I had forgotten how much I missed it until we want back for a family reunion when I was in my early 30s.

Since being married and having kids, one of my favorite vacations was to Charleston, SC. Our kids’ Christian school’s Easter break was a different week than the public schools’ spring break (I wish it was like that ever year!!), so we didn’t encounter all kinds of other families on break. Our pastor used to live in Charleston, so we asked him about places to see and stay. He told us about a hotel right on one of the beaches. It was a little more expensive but oh-so-worth it to be able to go down to the beach any time (and going to sleep with the sound of the surf was nice). We do have modesty concerns and don’t want to go to beaches with the kinds of things people wear — especially with 3 boys — so having that area of beach almost to ourselves for a few days was wonderful. Plus we went on one of the carriage tours (only marred by someone behind us chatting on her cell phone so we couldn’t always hear the guide clearly. Grr!) and visited the Yorktown and went on a harbor tour. It was one of the loveliest vacations ever.

Another time we went down to Clearwater, FL, because my oldest son was interested in Clearwater Christian College, and we took an extra day and went to Sea World. I just loved that, especially the dolphin show.

My husband has often said that all he remembers about family vacations as a child is driving and driving and driving and then having to sit around and listen to adults talk. 🙂 Though that is a part of vacations (and we do want the kids to value getting to know their relatives and not just think vacations are all about their entertainment), we have tried to have a few family excursions like the ones to Charleston or taken an extra day here and there just to do something as a family. Even when we have gone to visit relatives, we’ve tried to take a day or afternoon to see some sights. We used to camp a lot when the two older boys were younger.

Whatever we do, it is just nice to break from routine and spend some time together apart from the usual distractions and duties.

Time Travel Tuesday: Memories With Dad

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The topic for this week’s Time Travel Tuesday, created and hosted by My Life as Annie, is “Memories with Dad.”

She says:

We’re traveling back to special memories of our dad’s this week.
What are some special memories or a special memory you have of/or with your dad?
Any sayings that only come from him?
Any interesting lessons you learned from your dad?

As I wrote earlier, my dad and I did not always have the best relationship. Yet I have little snapshots of pleasant memories, especially from the early years…

I remember being afraid in my bed one night, then I thought about my dad’s big knife and trusted that he could take care of any bad guys that might invade our home.

I remember him brushing my hair and commenting about how beautiful the color was.

I remember waking up in his arms one night when I had fallen asleep somewhere and he was taking me to my bed. He stopped in the hallway where my mom brushed my hair back and told me good night and they murmured those loving things parents say when their kids are asleep. I remember pretending I was still asleep because I was enjoying the moment so much. 🙂

I remember that my dad had a motor scooter at one time. When I was young, everyone in our neighborhood would come out to their front yards after dinner with lawn chairs and watch the kids play and visit with each other. My dad would sometimes take kids in the neighborhood for rides up and down the street on his scooter.

I remember that when anyone in my family had a birthday, that person got to pick the meal for dinner, and my dad always chose corned beef and cabbage.

I remember that my dad was a welder and often repaired things for friends at home. I remember him in his big protective helmet cautioning us kids not to look at the sparks the welding made or get too close.

I remember on the Fourth of July he liked to get a lot of fireworks — not the noisy kinds but the kinds that made pretty patterns in the sky.

When it comes to lessons, the one overriding lesson I earned from him was respect: respect for authority, for elders, for country. Even respect for God, in a way — he was not a believer until late in life, bet I never heard him say or do anything irreverent, and he was always respectful of preachers who stopped by.

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Time Travel Tuesday: First Date

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Today’s topic for Time Travel Tuesday, sponsored by My Life as Annie, is our first date.

I honestly can’t remember my first date. I know who it was with, but I don’t remember what we did. I do know I was way too young!!!

So, if it’s ok, I am going to write about my first date with my husband.

I was a junior in college and he was a sophomore. We worked in the college library: I was at the front desk while he worked in the periodical room. If both places weren’t busy, somehow he and I were both assigned to help another guy, John, whose job was to get the returned books back in place on the shelves. We all enjoyed each others’ company.

Then one day in January, after we had been working together one semester, Jim asked me out. I found out much later that he had been trying to get John to ask me out because John was very shy and didn’t date much. John kept declining, so Jim finally said to himself, “Well, if she’s such a nice girl, why don’t I ask her out.” So he did. 🙂

Unfortunately I had extension the night he asked me for — extension was our Christian college’s word for a ministry outside the college. Every Friday night I went with a few other girls to a nursing home about 45 minutes away and visited with some of the residents, especially those who didn’t receive many visitors. When I told Jim why I couldn’t go, he understood, but there was still a part of him that wondered if maybe I didn’t want to go.

As it turned out, it snowed that evening. At dinner time it was announced that all extensions were canceled because of the weather. After dinner I found Jim waiting for me and he said — and to this day he doesn’t remember saying this — “Since you can’t serve God tonight, do you want to serve mammon?” I knew he was joking, but it kind of made me wonder about this guy. 🙂

We went to a basketball game in which his best friend was playing. Neither of us are very athletic or very interested in athletics, but it was something to do on a Friday night. He told me later he discerned that it might be best to steer away from athletic events for future dates. 🙂 But we did have a good time. It happened to be a Friday the 13th the weekend before final exams.

One of my good friends was friends with Jim, and they had very much a “buddy” relationship. I think because of that and because we worked together, I thought of Jim as a nice guy who was really fun to be around, another “buddy,” but didn’t really think of him as a potential boyfriend. Yet I found myself uncommonly excited when he asked me out. 🙂 And because we had known and worked around each other for a time, I felt comfortable and could be myself.

Our relationship grew from there. We dated around a year and a half and were engaged about 6 months before we were married. That was 27+ years ago. 🙂

I don’t have a picture from our first date — I don’t have many pictures from our dating days at all, and somehow most of them are a little blurry — but here they are:

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Time Travel Tuesday — Blog Beginning Edition

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I just saw at Barb’s a weekly meme started by My Life as Annie called Time Travel Tuesday. I hadn’t seen it before, but apparently each week Annie suggests a particular time in our lives that we go back and write about. Sounds like fun!

This week the instructions are to go back to our first blog post, post it again, and tell how we got started blogging.

I think I first heard about blogging through my oldest son. He had a blog, but it wasn’t terribly interactive; it was more of a place to record his thoughts. Then I used to be on the Crosswalk forums a lot, and they have their own “Blog Town” there, but it was in the same format as the rest of their forums and didn’t have a place for comments there at the blogs — bloggers had to start a separate thread in another part of the forums to interact with others.

I can’t remember how I first discovered blogs as I know them now — probably as a link from something else I read. I discovered a few that I enjoyed reading regularly. Gradually the idea began to dawn to begin one of my own. One of my main purposes was to try to be a testimony to others with transverse myelitis: some on the subscriber list I’m on for that frown at much mention of God, so I thought I would have more freedom to share about Him with others on my own turf. Plus, though I am not one of the “aged” women of Titus 2, I hoped that I could encourage other ladies in their Biblical roles. And I have entertained some thoughts of trying to do more writing, and blogging sounded like good exercise in that regard.

Here is my first post, less than a year ago:

About me

Thursday, July 27th, 2006I am a Christian 40-something stay-at-home mom. By Christian I mean someone who is born again by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior from sin. I thank God for His patience and grace as He leads me along day by day.

I have been married to my wonderful husband, Jim, for 26 years. We have three boys whom we love dearly and who keep us on our toes….and on our knees.

I enjoy reading, writing, decorating, some crafts when there is time. I have enough projects I’d like to do and things I’d like to learn to keep me busy for the next 50 years or so. -)

I had been thinking about starting a blog for some time, and blest with son’s posts about why she blogs convinced me. (I’m glad to be able to stretch my brain by learning new things, but I am new to this, so forgive me if links and things aren’t entirely smooth yet.) While this blog is a home to my “stray thoughts,” I hope it will be a blessing to those who stop by.

I have found blogging to be good exercise in writing: I often think about better ways to phrase my sentences. I have learned to be cautious in expressing myself, knowing that readers may take my words any number of ways. I think, I hope I have been some encouragement to others. I have been blessed to hear from some with TM. What I have been surprised about, though, is discovering the blogging community at large. I had been blessed, instructed, inspired, challenged, and encouraged by the bloggers I knew in the beginning, but that was just the tip of the iceberg! Then to see the way the blogosphere pulls together to pray each other through crises and even help financially has been a lesson in Christian love in action.

I think I’m still finding my voice and my place. I’m not naturally as humorous as some or as poignant as others. I’ve struggled, as many others have written, with wanting response and affirmation and reminding myself that when I started this I gave it to the Lord and asked Him to use it as He saw fit, whether I ever knew how He used it or not. I’ve struggled with balance in not spending too much of my day in blogging and reading others’ blogs.

But overall I’m glad I found the blogosphere and glad to be a part of it.

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