Where Have You Been Mama?

 

 

I just got a wild hair and decided to look up my old blog.  It's been two years since I've been here!  A lot has happened in those two years. 

 

Like most things in life, once you skip doing something you're supposed to do, it becomes easier not to do it the next time and the next until you've stopped altogether.

 

I found a beautiful, bound leather journal for a dollar in the thrift shop.  Decided to use it to record blessings every day to keep my thoughts positive.  Lasted two weeks. 

 

 

I finally got up the courage to join Weight Watchers after my heart scare.  Lost 25 pounds and more energy that I'd had in years.  But it was expensive and I kept forgetting that I had to pay extra if I missed a week so I quit after 3 months.  Slowly, the weight came back on.  Putting on my shoes to go walking was a chore.  Walking was boring.  Blah blah blah.  You know how it goes.

 

And a dozen other things I meant to do and started well, then poof - it was over.  Here are some things I've learned in these two years.

 

 

1.  Be kind to yourself.  You aren't stupid, lazy, bipolar or thoughtless if you fall out of a habit.  You're a regular human being and we do this kind of thing every day - all of us. 

 

2.  When it comes to diets, you're back on routine with your next bite. 

 

3.  Don't wait for a grand gesture to get started again.  Certainly you can make your own grand gesture but don't wait for God to send one out of the blue.  Eating well again - go to the salad bar at the market and buy yourself a healthy meal, remembering that some fixings are carb and calorie laden, like dressings.

 

4.  Sure - reward yourself.  With something healthy.  Buy a book at the library sale. Hit the thrift shop for a $2 blouse or 50c piece of china.  Nail polish from the 99c counter.

 

 

5.  Make appointments with yourself.  Put it on the calendar.  "Today I'm going to have lunch with so and so."  "Today I'm going to call _____ and have a chat."  Put out the equipment you'll need for the activity - sneakers at ready, clothes out, CD Walkman ready.

 

6.  Post it notes on your blouse.  I want to pray throughout the day but TV calls.  A bright yellow sticker on my arm reminds me.

 

 

So today I resolve to get back into my blog.  It's a small thing but it's another building block in my eternal quest for consistency.

Treasures From The Past

I'm a little weepy as I write this, and it's not all due to dust and mold allergy!  Some of the heirlooms in our house are going to good homes with family members.  We're thrilled that they won't end with us and will live on with others who love them and the people they're connected to.

The cedar chest my grandfather made.  He was a cabinet maker and built beautiful furniture.  This one wasn't good furniture, it was utilitarian.  Yet, made with respect and care because in those days, you did everything that way.  It's covered with grime, painted gray, spiders are in it.  But the person who is going to get it is going to love restoring it.

A tiny wooden stool.  My grandpop was fond of making stools!  He'd find a good piece of wood in the trash and start creating.  That's also going to be fun for my niece to restore.

A little oak box of some sort.  We had to pry the cover off, to find it was really a tiny chest.  Opening the drawers I began my tearful journey with my father's rulers.  Okay.  What's the big deal about rulers?  My father had this thing about them.  Occasionally he even made his own.  When he had his business he ordered hundreds of them with his name on them.  Beige color, plastic, beveled edges, they were the staples of my life with him.  Underlining in his Bible, making art work, in business as he measured glasses for customers.  It took me back to those days when I would watch him study for his turn preaching.  I'd ask him what his topic was and he'd always say, "Sin.  I'm against it."  We're going to keep the little box and restore it.  Even if we never use it, it's a memory.

There are other cabinets filled with tools.  Hard core woodworking and construction drills and bits.  Dad was the consummate builder, like his dad.

David reached up and brought down a wooden box that was high up out of sight.  I recognized it right away.  Slowly pushed the dust away and opened it... it was my father's art box.  That did it with the restraint.  Pastel chalks, charcoal pencils, watercolors, oil chalks, gum erasers.  The whole vista of memory opened up.  Dad was an artist who should have done it for a living.  He used his art in ministry.  He did 'chalk talks', if any of you over 60 remember them.  Illustrating a sermon or talk by drawing a picture in chalks then giving it away to an audience member.  I would have my little easel, beside his, he'd put out the chalks and pencils and direct me.  He did the big one, I did a little one.  Sometimes he'd give me what he had done.  For many years I had a chalk picture on the door of my bedroom of the Safe Harbor - a ship coming into the harbor at dusk, red sky, setting sun, safe from the storms of the day.  I'd stare at it at night and think of God, my harbor.  That picture did more for my acceptance of God than any number of sermons.  When we were finished drawing he would insist that I put the materials away correctly.  Sometimes I went with him to the art store for supplies and he would buy me sketching pencils or art paper.  Once he brought home one of those jointed wooden dolls that an artist uses to sketch form.

I'm reminded of the verse that says, "Lord, you have been my dwelling place through all generations."  More than the actual things, it's the memory of my dear parents who taught not by words or strap, but by living out the example.

Date Night at Wawa

Sometimes you forget that your pleasures are regional.  We don't have Publix or Piggly Wiggly up here in Pa.  Out near Harrisburg they have Sheetz convenience stores.  Here in Pennsylvania, we have Wawa.  When I first heard the name of the store, 40 years ago, I laughed.  What the heck was a Wawa?  It sounded like Snoopy's voice.  Not sure why the owner named it that but oh well.

Most convenience stores are horrendously expensive, have horrible food and dirty bathrooms.  Wawa's do not.  They started small, like a 7-11 but over the years, refined the atmosphere.  Although the food does cost more than a grocery store, it's not out of most people's league.  The sandwiches are reasonably priced and very good.  Hot drinks, delicious, well made.  The bathrooms are clean.  The buildings, while all the same structure, are designed to fit into any environment.

A mile from us used to stand Bally's gym.  It was a three story glass building with a huge parking lot, on the edge of the community park.  Totally out of tune with the neighborhood.  Nobody liked it.  Three years ago it went out of business and sat there, annoying everyone.  Then, a developer bought the land and we all sighed.  What kind of monstrosity was going up there now?

Surprise!  It was a Wawa!  It took a year of planning and building after six months of knocking down the Bally's building.  Everybody wondered if the store would be worse than what was there.  Would traffic be a nightmare?  How about Manhattan Bagel across the street?  Would they be put out of business?

David and I were sitting in the back room, reading, when he saw that Wawa had opened that day.  We were two excited senior citizens.  Wawa's habit is to offer free hot drinks for the first week.  I said, "why don't we go over now?"  Well that was a thought.  Who goes out for fun after ten?  We do!  And it was really fun!  The store is clean and bright, the manager stopped us and explained where everything was, I got a S'more hot chocolate and David his coffee.  On the way out, we met a friend who was also excitedly getting her coffee.  Traffic in and out was fine and a path led down into the park.

Welcome Wawa to Willow Grove!

Happy Birthday Mother!

Today, Mother would have been 101 years old!  Now, my dad I can imagine that old.  He was robust and active to the last hour.  But mother, she was shy, graceful, retiring, Dad's port in the storm.  I can't imagine her being any older than she was when she passed away at 83.

My first memory ever is of mother feeding me.  I was in a highchair so I must have been a toddler.  She was smiling, I threw food on the floor, and she laughed.  She thought I was funny.  I felt so accepted.  Other memories are of watching her bake, clean, do wash, iron, hang the wash, set the table, bring out the food and set it in front of Dad first.  She hung wallpaper, gardened, sewed all our clothes, read everything she could get her hands on.  The neighbors would get together and give one another permanent waves.   And I didn't only watch from my perch under the table or in the corner of the kitchen.  She would invite me, rather than make me, come and help so I was doing adult activities at a very young age.

I loved going visiting with her.  Mother would put on her hat and gloves, fill a basket with fresh baked goods and tea bags.  We would get on the trolley or bus and "call" on a sick or elderly woman.  I would sit at her feet while they chatted, either coloring or playing with a doll, then mother would pray with the woman and on the way home, she would stop at the playground and let me play as a reward for being good.

Mother was the consummate storyteller.  Every experience was a cause for drama and she would regale us with these little plays, we children acting them out.  She was a writer also.  Carried a pen and paper everywhere she went and one would see her pull out her little pad and jot down notes.  It would later appear as a story.  She was never published, rather she did it because the stories were in her and had to come out.  Mother would often turn to me and invite my input.  We had this plan o write a book together - life from the old and young point of view.  We never got to write the whole thing but worked on it throughout our lives together.

Mother honored her husband.  Yes, they were human, fought and disagreed vigorously.  But when it came down to it, Dad was every bit the head of the home.  It enabled him to be the leader and protector a husband is supposed to be.  She was adored and supported by him and was able to be much more than many other women in the 50s because of his respect for her.  She was progressive because my dad had her back.

Never in my life was I sent to bed, even as a teenager.  At bath time mother would sit on the toilet seat and sing Jesus songs and we'd talk.  She would lead me to bed and open our current book and spend a good hour reading to me, praying over me, rubbing my back.  When I would wake, I would hear the old rocker squeaking back and forth and see her in the corner of the room watching over me.

Mother seldom spanked me. (that was Dad's job).  She didn't have the temperament for it.  As bad as I was and insistent on my own way, she would talk to me.  When mother said that she was disappointed in me because she knew that misdeed wasn't who I really was, my heart melted, more than any strap could do.

As a young mother and wife, I would come over, Dad would pour endless cups of tea while she would whip up spetzle, my favorite.  When I was very pregnant and sick the whole time, she suddenly flew out the door, stopped the ice cream man and bought me a cone.

I feel so fortunate that I had that week to say goodbye, especially since Dad took a flying leap into heaven.  We talked about everything, she solved the mysteries of our family life, passed on family secrets that I was supposed to hold.  I apologized for being such a difficult kid and she said, "I thought you were cute and funny.  I loved being your mother."  I will take those words to my grave. 

She made me write down the whole dying experience - a writer to the end.  We sang hymns and prayed together.  I was writing, in fact, at the moment she passed.  I had been singing the hymn, Face to Face with Christ my Savior, and sat down to rest, picking up my yellow legal pad to write the things she had told me I needed to remember, when her breathing just stopped and she was gone.

And yet, not gone.  She's with me in my dreams, in this house where she spent 50 years, the old Philadelphia house for the first 8 years of my life, the rose gardens, grape arbor, upholstery, the box of hundreds of buttons in a Whitman Sampler box because you never know when you'll need a button, her thread collection which I'm still using, her Singer which is working well, and in the people who come up to me and tell me how much they loved my mother.

So happy birthday Mother!  Love you and miss you but glad that you're enjoying eternity.



Eunice Macdonald was kind, gracious, non judgmental, loving, respectful of other people's journeys in life, progressive in thinking, a deep thinker about God and open to learning something new, not a religious party line thinker.  Counselor, children's minister, prayer warrior, artist, Bible teacher, true Christian and friend.

Where's Mama?

Missed me?  Of course you did!  It's been a year of adventure, and unfortunately, no way to publish it on my blog! 

Our old computer, good girl that she is, slowly died.  Taking facebook and blogs with it.  Thank you Uncle Sam - able to get a new one this year!  Checked it out - Mama's Musings is back!

Things we said we'd never do - along with the computer, Dave and I got tablets.  I swore they were useless to me - never say no.  It goes with me everywhere.  Camera - facebook - google, oh what fun to watch a tv show and look up the stars and plot!  "Hey, who was the second Darren?"

Library app - any book in library circulation - for 3 weeks and automatically returned.  What could be better for a reader like me?  And if you're one of those who told me I would love it - please hold your judgy look!  You were right, okay?

So Mama is back!  Hope you'll visit often and find out what soap box I'm on that day.

Mother's Prayers

It's 11:30 pm, I've brushed my teeth and taken my medication.  Lights are out in the bedroom, David is snoring.  I lay there with pillows plumped for a half hour and then got up, came in here to write more on the stories I have going.  Why?  Because nothing but dark thoughts are going through my head.  Depressive thoughts.  Things I should have done, things I did do that were wrong, regrets, scenarios of what I wish had happened in certain circumstances.  Does this happen to you too?  I bet it does.

In other days I would write a story in my head.  Or think of a Bible verse for every letter of the alphabet, or girl's names, or favorite foods.  I usually never got farther than G.  But it doesn't work for me anymore.  Maybe something about aging when the stories have been written, no new Bible verses to surprise myself, don't care about girls' names and I'm on a strict diet so shouldn't think about food.

So I get up and see if Joel or Joyce are on the religious channels.  Or go to my trusty computer and write or blog.  I have a memory of long ago.  This is the house I grew up in.  I was often frightened in the night but terrified to get up and face the monsters that lurked for me in the dark.  But when I did, I found comfort in the living room.  Mother would be lying on the sofa covered in an afghan that she had made, a radio at her eat tuned to the Family Bible Hour music.  She would be murmuring.  It wasn't a bad dream, she was praying.  An insomniac (is that where I get it?) and often having depressing thoughts (she told me on her death bed) she would go into the living room.  Dad would have set up her nest with the blankets and radio.  He would make her toast and go back to bed.  Mother would lie there in the dark praying.

And then one night, I heard my name.  "Bless little Martha..."  Little Martha was 13 and wild, rebellious, heedless and thoughtless.  Had nothing to do with God.  Was scaring my gentle mother to death with my antics.  But I heard my name in prayer.  My mother, who couldn't stop me, knew who could.  I felt so loved.

So in a few minutes I'm going to close up shop here and try again, if David's snoring doesn't keep me up.  I'm having a routine blood test in the morning and cannot eat anything until 10 tomorrow morning and if I sit here long enough, I'll eat and that will be the end of my blood test.  What will I do to get to sleep?  Stay tuned!

A Sweet Hobby

I remember the day, around 1962, when my mother came into this very living room and sat beside me on the sofa making me turn off the TV.  I was not pleased.  She had a sampler she had sewn when she was a child.  Why she would think I, her wild pre teen would care, I don't know.  I still see it - a home made counted cross stitch design that said 'Search the Scriptures'.  Of all the lame things to say, mother asked me if I would like to make a sampler too.  I think she was in the mood to share something with her daughter and that was what she came up with.  In a burst of uncharacteristic cooperation, I said I would like that.

Mother got out a piece of fine muslin from her fabric box.  Together we used a pencil to mark Xs in the shape of words.  Mine said, 'Love One Another'.  I was given a hoop and red thread and set to work.  Mother and I had a great afternoon together, laughing and sharing.

And that was the start of one of my favorite hobbies.  I loved cross stitch.  And it didn't take me long to finish a piece.  When I was thirteen my Pioneer Girl leader announced that she had started a business - glory be, a sampler company!!  And it was just up the street.  My father drove me over and I thought I would faint from the joy of it.  A warehouse full of printed cross stitch kits.  I chose two and remember that they cost about $3 each.  They were finished within two weeks.  He took me back.  And I picked the biggest, hardest one there - St. Francis of Assisi Prayer, 16x20, half inch letters.  It took a year off and on.  It hung in my parent's house until I got married and it moved to my house.  I have no idea where it is now.  Then I did an alphabet sampler with a flower for every letter.  My daughter has that one.  In my thirties, depressed, overwhelmed, my father knew just what would perk me up.  He bought me a crewel kit of a Hummel child thinking it would give me encouragement.  That was followed by three more Hummels.  In the following years I would take a piece of muslin or lawn and draw a picture or a poem and just free lance it.  I carried a 5x7 square of aida cloth with me at all times and would sooth my social anxiety by doing poems and Bible verses.  I can see myself, my busy hands on my lap, weaving the needle in and out, while trying to look like I was listening.

And then I stopped.  Never picked up the needle again.  I think life got too busy and overwhelming for hobbies.  When the girls were here last summer and we went through the cedar chest, they exclaimed over the many needlework pieces, almost fifty, that were stored there.  When they went home, I couldn't get embroidery out of my mind.  So I went out and bought a large length of aida cloth and looked up some counted cross stitch patterns online (something my mother didn't have).  And started to stitch.  And stitch.  And stitch.  Pictures and words and alphabets.  I have a quilt made of embroidered Bible verses, 14 samplers of all kinds.  Just started #15.  I love going to Michael's and ruminating over thread colors.  So many more than I had in 1965.  What am I going to do with them?  Nothing.  Roll them up in a tube and when I'm dead my girls will find them and say, "What the heck?"  Or maybe they'll value them as I did my mother's work.

I know that at some point, like Forrest Gump, I'm going to be done and just stop.  I only have one piece of aida left so maybe the time is coming.  How sad.  But until then, I'm having a ball.  Thanks Mom.