A Babysitter Story

It is truly funny (as in peculiar, not ha-ha) what triggers a memory.

Sunday my sister and I were visiting with another lady. We were talking about how our parents picked our individual names. Her mother loved Debbie Reynolds, so our friend was named Deby, and her sister was named Tammy.

This enabled my sister and me of our first babysitter--Debbie Reynolds. Yep, the moviestarDebbieReynolds. She lived right behind us in North Hollywood. My sister has better memoires of her than i do, since we left North Hollywood when I was 9, my sister was 12, and Debbie Reynolds was probably about 20, and no longer babysitting us.

We were blessed to have been raised by parents who embraced diversity and allowed us to see all people as equals; that those who are "great" are no "greater" than anyone else. Those "great" people often have made different choices which allowed more "success". Even though those people who don't achieve "greatness" because of their own choices, or circumstances beyond their control are no less "great" in the eyes of their loved ones.

Of Dreams

I had a dream-dream sometime ago. You will recall that I had been having tons of trouble in my previous job re: training. Well, in my dream, I was sitting at my computer being trained on billing out receivables. My trainer was very patient, and I was able to understand each step, because he made sure I did before moving on to the next step. Then, he had me do several step-by-step under his watchful eye.

Like today.

Keeping a Blog

Well, Pig, I'm happy you're happy I'm keeping a blog so you can get all the info you want! Hence the NAME "Memory Keeper"!!!! lol

The 30-year itch

I got this from one of my online "lists" today.

"One of the biggest mistakes parents, and especially mothers, make is to build their entire world around their kids... only to find that when their children leave that world for college or a career, there is a strange man sleeping next to them. Or, no man at all because he realized long ago that he had lost his wife to the children. Sure, it's important to focus on our children. But ladies, if you don't put your husband first, he may be tempted to fill that void in his life with something or someone else. Make your spouse a top priority.

"Remember, your family first."

And here is my response to the poster:

"This is really great advice. I tried to follow it, because when all is said and done, children do grow up and move away. We had 5 kids--and all their friends, etc...but our oldest is now almost 30, and our youngest is almost 21. The "baby" will be leaving for a Church mission, serving for 18 months shortly after Christmas, and we will be true empty-nesters. You know what? We are looking forward to it. We still enjoy each other's company, and doing "stuff" together. That is not to say that we haven't each had our "own" activities--because we certainly have!

A Missing Bible

Aproximately 40 years ago, my teen-age brother, and my dad drove across country from Central California to Tulsa, OK to touch base with my dad's family. Since my dad was an only child, they visited with my father's cousins, aunts and uncles. The reason behind the visit was that my brother had just recently joind the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), and was interested in geneology.

My dad's dad's sister was in posession of the family bible in which all births, deaths, marriages and etc. were recorded. She allowed Dad and Brother to look at the bible, and even copy down some information...but that was all. They were not allowed to take it and have it professionally copied (there were no Xerox machines at the time yet). When they got back to California, Dad had a question about one of the entries, and called his aunt, requesting her to look in the bible for clarification. She couldn't. She had given the bible away out of the family so no one would ever be able to see it again. Seems shame for her 1/2 Native American blood ran too deep to allow it to be traced back to her family again. Too sad.

On another interesting note, I heard 2 years ago that her son is now a registered member of the Osage Nation, so there is that possible trail for one of my kids to follow.

Church Clothes

As I was sitting in church this morning, nylon-less and wearing my "Faken-stocks" I was looking around at the way many of the other ladies and young women were wearing. Sadly, way too many were dressed even more casually than I. The teen-ager next to me was wearing flip flops, a skirt, and a ratty jean-jacket.

It saddens me that we often pat ourselves on the back because "we" wear dresses/skirts to church, and most of the "other churches" wear pants. But arent' we a bit self-righteous when we do this? Flip-flops and ratty jean jackets are not any better in my book than slacks.

I was raised that we should always wear our best clothes to church, not just throw any-ol' thing on. Income is not an issue, either. If the only shoes I had were flip-flops or Faken-stocks, I would be within these guidelines in wearing what I have. But such is not the case. I have "dress" shoes which I chose to not wear, because they would have required the nylons to go with them, and I was frankly just plain too lazy.

The one thing my two grandmothers had in common was they way they dressed for church. My maternal grandmother wore her best blue-polka-dot dress, nylons, black tie-up helled shoes, black hat, (white in the summer), black gloves (white in the summer), and in the winter, her best coat. My paternal grandmother wore her best dress, hat, mink stole, (even in the summer, sometimes), gloves, nylons and nice shoes. They could have stood next to each other in church, and neither be ashamed of their clothes.

Had I been attending church today with either of these ladies today, they would have died of embarassment. I had not put my best foot forward for the Lord today. Neither, unfortunately, did about 2/3 of the female population of our congregation.

A New Job

It has been 3 weeks since I declared "uncle!" and said that I was going to do some serious job-hunting. Well, the most amazing thing happened 2 weeks ago today...I answered my cell phone to a man on the other end asking if I was still looking for another job. We chatted for about 10 minutes, then I clocked out for lunch and drove over to see this man about the position he had open. We chatted in person for about an hour, then he offered me a job.

Well, my mother didn't raise no fool, as they say, and I accepted the position. Yesterday was my first day in my new job. I already am happier than I was in the old job! I'm not too sure how long I'll be here, but already it is better. Did I say I work with 8 guys and my boss (also a guy)? Oh, did I also mention that they all seem to like me? Ummm, Also, 5 of the 9 are LDS! small world, eh?

I really feel that God knew I was at the end of my rope at the health place, and couldn't sleep, etc...so he gave me a present, a new job, a new challenge.

I did give my old boss 3 days notice of my leaving...but I didn't want her to tell anyone of my decision. Unfortunately, she didn't understand that I ment what I said, so my last day, she did tell my 3 co-workers. bummer. Oh well, I'm over it.