Empty Nester – Extraordinaire

Posts Tagged ‘aunt lois’

The Bat Cave – The Home Tour, part 3

This installment of the home tour is LONG overdue as I cannot manage to keep my room clean long enough to photograph it.  I set a very bad example for my children. Really.

If you missed Part 1 or Part 2, click the links.

The view from the door.  The paint looks much darker without the flash, but without the flash, this really does look like a cave.

Skull and candle on the dresser at the foot of the bed. Not a real skull, I promise 🙂  And a vanilla-scented candle, inspiring me to work on making my own.

The bookshelf that is rarely ever organized.  Sadly it works as a storage unit most of the time. Today,  it’s relatively cleaned out.

The top.  Ignore the cobwebs; I can’t reach that corner.

Mama’s Teddy Scares and part of my collection of Peter Pan items.  Here you see the stack of printer paper that’s found a temporary home…

Small cabinet that holds most of my mani/pedi stuff.  Eric will set books on the top that he thinks I should read.

It photographs much more cluttered than it really is.  Jewelry boxes and candles take up most of the space.  There’s also a coaster since I was having tea as I was cleaning and a sticker that has since moved out to my sewing area.

Big box full of the chunkier jewelry, smaller box holding overflow jewelry, the thinnest box holds treasures from my Mother and Aunt Lois.  The ladybug cup was painted by one of my kids for Mother’s day and holds earrings.

Closeup of a birthday card I received from one of my good friends a couple years ago and a wax tart melter.

Ravynn made me a ring holder during a ceramics unit in school.  D12 becasue they make me happy. The bottom of a vase holding pretty rocks, hair sticks, and a tiara.

More candles, a box full of nail polish and the profile of an origami penguin that Ravynn made.

Next… the living room.

On Being Alone

I grew up in an extended family: mother, father, me, two sisters, my father’s father, and my mother’s sister.  Grandpa lived with my parents before I was born and that didn’t change after we girls came along.  My mother’s sister had always lived with their mother and, when my grandmother died, my father invited my aunt to live with us.  It wasn’t a big house and it was full to the brim with people: four adults, three kids. 

As I grew up there weren’t many opportunities for me to be alone.  I shared a room with my two sisters until my dad built a second floor when I was 16 and we each got our own rooms.  My mother didn’t work after I was born, so I expected her to be home.  Most of the time she was.  When I was very young, obviously I couldn’t stay alone.  When I became older and was old enough to be at home without my mother, my Grandfather was sick and it wasn’t advisable for me to be home without her.  My Grandfather passed when I was 13 and in the 8th grade and I was suddenly able to be home ‘alone’, but alone is hard to come by when you’re part of a family of seven. Most likely someone will always be at home with you or will be coming home shortly.

In college I most always had a roommate, but if they were out, I could be found in the lobby watching TV or talking to whoever was around.

When Eric and I got married and there were only two of us to fill our home, it was much easier to be alone and I resisted it.  I’d go to the grocery with him.  We worked together, so we kept the same hours.  After the kids started coming and our two grew to three, then four, then five, and finally six, it was difficult to find time alone. I like it that way.

I like it a lot.

Unfortunately as the kids get older, they have more opportunities to try new things.  Well, the opportunities are good, but the time away from home is difficult.  Alek spent three weeks at the Houston Ballet in a summer intensive program.  That was hard for me and I only stopped fussing when he was only three days shy of coming back.  During that time, Eric’s mom invited the girls to come up and spend a week with her.  Now, I never had the opportunity to “spend a week with Grandma.”  She lived right across the street, so that would have been silly.  All of my family [mostly] was in town, so we didn’t run off visiting.  I just don’t get it.  But the kids enjoy it, so we send them. 

One of my friends at work asked me, while I was experiencing life as the mother of one, how I was feeling about my empty nest.  I disliked it.  My boss overheard and reminded me that in two years, I’d have one heading off to college.  You can imagine the look he got.  But even I had to admit I can see the nervous breakdown coming.  I suggest I start hoarding litter boxes now for when I become the crazy cat lady.

But, other than the boys making a quick trip to Grandma’s and maybe Jordan heading to Pittsburgh for a stint in manual labor/babysitting, we’re all home for the rest of the season.  I think I’ll be okay.

It reminds me though, that Goths are supposed to be morose and sad and resist human interaction.  Not this one.

Remember the Time

Yesterday was a day of remembering.  And the thing is, I didn’t realize until I was outside with Ravynn and Whisper this morning while they waited for the bus.

The day started with a drive out to Camp Chesterfield for the tea reading seminar.  I’ve never read tea leaves, but I really want to!  So, I’m hunting for loose tea through a couple of websites that were suggested by friends.  I’ve spent some time looking at Stash Tea and Special Teas is next! I’m also hunting down tea cups with plain white interiors on Ebay. I’ve found I set that I like and I’m waiting for an answer from the seller about the inside.

There wasn’t a great depth of information provided at the seminar, but there was enough that I’ll feel comfortable giving it a go once I have everything I need.  The process for the readings is fairly simple:

• Brew a HOT pot of tea with loose tea
• Pour a cup
• Drink most of it.  Sipping the tea will allow your aura to infuse with the tea and will give a proper reading.
• When the tea is mostly gone and there are dregs showing in the bottom, hold the cup in your left hand and swirl it three times.
• Place the saucer upside down over the cup and flip it all together and all at once, so the cup is sitting upside down on the saucer [which is right-side up].
• Turn the cup three times and end it with the handle facing you/the reader.
• Lift the cup and explore the patterns left by the leaves.

The suggestion was to use a cup with a white interior so the leaves are easier to see.  Patterns on the left of the cup indicate the past; patterns near the rim indicate the present/near future.  Dark leaves indicate a man; light leaves indicate a woman.

I need to do more research to learn the meaning of specific symbols. I’d hoped the class would touch on that more, but it didn’t.

What the class did focus on was the importance of drinking tea for health – both physical and emotional.  The mention of tea parties for children brought back lovely memories of sitting in the living room at my grandmother’s home with my Aunt Lois.  She drank tea ALL the time and made cups for my sisters and I when we went to visit – which was quite often as we were lucky enough to live across the street.  We sat and drank tea while we watched Grandma crochet or put together puzzles.

Grandma Rounds

Aunt Lois taught us to embroider and let us help her with projects. Now I have to wonder exactly how much help we were 🙂  The tea seminar really reminded me of those days, which was nice.  We lost Grandma in 1979 and lost Aunt Lois in the summer of 2008.  I always think of them when I have a strong black tea.  I will continue to do so.

After we came  home, we had bags of loot to sort – BAGS.  I attempted to take photos in order to share the before and after [as many of these items will become one-of-a-kind items for Bats! meow…] but I hit some strange combination of buttons on my camera which changed the options to Black & White photos.  You really need to see the color on these! So after I call customer service and get that straightened out, I’ll be able to share!  As we were digging through the old costumes, we checked the tags and waistbands for the ever-present name in Sharpie ink that told us who they used to belong to.  Some of these clothes belonged to girls who were smaller than Ravynn and Whisper when we met them.  Eric and I started working with the studio in 1988, when he was a college freshman. We entertained the kids for hours with stories of when their ballet teachers were little and with descriptions of past choreography.

The evening ended with the Grammys.  Normally, we skip them.  This year,  however, Whisper had begged us for days to pick up 3D glasses at Target and we were ready for the Michael Jackson tribute.  I was pleased that they were broadcasting expected air times for performances as the show progressed.  10pm…  almost two hours past the girls’ bedtime and an hour past the boys’.  With a quick reminder that they’d have to get up for school with NO complaints, we agreed to let them stay up. I joked on my personal Facebook profile that I was ‘the worst mother ever,’ but I’m glad we made the decision we did. Instead of watching covers of his more successful songs, we were treated to a celebration of his humanitarian efforts. I cried. I did.  Whisper did too.  She didn’t know who he was prior to his passing, but has since become his biggest fan – even asking for an MJ birthday party in February.  Because of her tears, she snuggled up onto my lap and sat for a few extra minutes and was treated to seeing his two oldest children accept an award on his behalf.  Children should not lose their parents so young.  Everyone felt that.

This morning the girls hopped out of bed while the boys dragged their way through the morning [much like mama!] and I treated them to some music during breakfast.  We listened to Michael because his CD was in the CD player.  As we waiting outside for the bus, Whisper looked up at me and said, “The next time I hear ,Remember the Time,’ I’m going to dance because it’s good to remember and we should be happy when we remember love.”

Remember. And dance.

~sheila