Tag Archives: childhood

Snow Stress

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Happy Valentine’s Day to all the lovers, those that believe in love and those seeking love.  Remember love exists in many ways so spend this weekend with the people/things that bring a smile to your face!

Snow Stress

Feb10-2

I have a love/hate relationship with snow.  I love it because it is an amazing sight to see.    To see the glow of the snow in my backyard, especially before it is touched with footprints is simply peaceful.  The way the snow sits on top of branches and rooftops looks like the page out of a perfect storybook.  There is also the joy that my job operates on the school schedule, so when they are out – so am I!

And then there’s my reality – the steep driveway that serves as my sole distraction between me being stuck at home and being reunited with the real world.  It’s not a basic, flat driveway.  This driveway is on an incline. If it’s not shoveled, I will either slide right down it or not be able to get back up it.

On Tuesday we had about six inches of snow. As the garage lifted, I knew I was in for my some major work outside.  I HATE SHOVELING SNOW!!!!! Now living in my childhood home, it’s become an instant thought associated with snow.

As I shoveled the snow this week I started to become very frustrated. I thought to myself, ‘whoever prayed for snow, please tell God you’re satisfied and the snow can stop coming’.  I kept thinking about how much I hated doing this.  Life was just so horrible.

And then I had a flashback – my mother and my father used to shovel this same driveway.  Not once did I ever remember them complaining.  I then remembered one particular snow day.  I moved back home for a couple of years after college and was an elementary school teacher.  My mother had ovarian cancer, and had just had some lymph nodes removed from her neck with surgery.  As I slept in, I heard my various neighbors shoveling their driveways one morning.  When I finally got out of bed, I realized the noise that I heard was my own mother shoveling our driveway.  I remember asking her what she was doing.  Her response was, “I didn’t want you to be late for teaching!”  Here is this woman that was battling cancer and just had a procedure done on her neck and she’s outside shoveling snow for me.

At the remembrance of that memory, I instantly stopped complaining. If she could do that for me, I had no reason to complain about doing it myself.  I also realized that I was blessed because she had purchased the most super-duper snow shovel ever invented.  I don’t have to lean over to pick up snow, it’s large enough to shovel standing up.

By now my complaints seemed juvenile and I instead concentrated on the songs on my Ipod. As I got to the last scoop at the bottom of my driveway, I breathed a sigh of relief.  I looked down my street and saw a family outside.  They had built a large snowman and we admiring their finished product. Tis the season to make memories.  I am glad that my temporary negativity didn’t affect that family from creating a new memory those kids would never forget!

M.Y. February 2010

Time For Change

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Time For Change

Mar09-2When you’re an only child that has lost both of your parents, you inherit a lot of things.  One of those things was my childhood home which I moved back into in 2006.  It took me a good amount of time to go through 25 years worth of my parents’ items.  For a long time, I just left everything the way it was.  The furniture stayed the same.  The flowered wallpaper in the kitchen looked at me each and every morning. My father’s 16 foot train set took up its special space in the basement.  The wood paneled walls in the basements didn’t change.   Most people didn’t even know I had a basement because I never went down there.  I always said I wanted to update it away from the 80s look and make it my own.
In 2007, I started getting bids from contractors.  I never followed through.  They would call me to see if I had made a decision, and I would say I wasn’t ready just yet.  As ugly as I thought it was, I wasn’t ready to make that change.
Finally in 2008, I knew the time was right.  I worked with Rateau Construction and we came up with a plan to completely remodel my basement  – ceilings, walls and floors and to update my kitchen.   It was fun to pick out the colors of paint, countertops and appliances.  They started work on the Monday after Thanksgiving and the basement was first.  When I walked downstairs after the first day, the first thing I noticed was that my father’s train set was gone.  Nowhere to be found.  This massive train project had been a beautiful display for over 20 years in my home.  I was sad at first and wondered if I were doing the right thing with making changes.  I then realized that memories are forever and I reminded myself that I can kept a small piece of the train set upstairs so that it will always be a part of me.
One step at a time, I watched the changes being made.  And with each step of the process, I slowly felt my childhood home becoming my modern day adult home.   I am in love with the changes that have been made and now have a completely new sense of home.  I feel like right now I have the best of both worlds.  I can walk into various rooms that still display my family’s art work or my mother’s accomplishments.  I can easily locate childhood momentos.  However, I can  sit comfortably in front of my flat screen tv in the basement and feel that the ‘adult me’ is also leaving my mark of this wonderful home!

Your change my not be physical changes to your house, maybe they are personal changes to your life.  Whatever transition you are going through, don’t let others tell you when the time is right.  Take your time, think things through and when the time right – you’ll know it!

M.Y.  March 2009

I Was a Runaway

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“I Was a Runaway”

When I was younger (and maybe even still today) I was a ‘goody-two-shoes’.  I tried to do right in everyone’s eyes and sought to be the best.  My parents often pushed me to get involved with things that I thought were ridiculous and a waste of my time.

In elementary school there was something I disagreed with.  I yelled at the top of my voice that life wasn’t fair and that I was leaving.  I stomped upstairs (“bam, bam, bam”), got a small suitcase and packed my things.  I WAS RUNNING AWAY! “I’LL SHOW THEM!!” I thought to myself.  I opened the garage door and slammed it behind me as I left the house.

Within three steps I realized how stupid I would look walking down my street with a suitcase.  What if my neighbors saw me?  I do have an image to uphold.  Where was I really going to go? So what did I do?  I walked ten steps onto my front porch and squatted by the door.  Two minutes later, I see my father storm out of the garage door and watch as he walks down the street looking for me.  I hear him call my name several times and I just sit there watching.

Needless to say, I have no idea what happened once he walked back to our house and saw me sitting there.  That memory has been permanently erased from my brain.  Over timed, I learned that  my parents actually had good intentions for my well being and upbringing.  I am blessed for many of the experiences they ‘made’ me do and have become a better person because of them.

M.Y.  August 2007