Friday, March 11, 2016

March 12, 2013 Mom went to her Heavenly Home

March 12, 2016 marks year 3 since my Mom's passing. As I skipped through some of her collectibles that she had saved, I found this page, laminated and tucked away neatly among the many other special things she had collected over the years.. She saved many of the letters and cards from us nine kids and other friends and family members. She saved pretty pictures clipped from magazines, bulletins from her church marking special dates to remember, poems, verses, and sayings that tugged at her heartstrings, many of the drawings that us kids had made for her over the years.certificates and report cards, letters of praise from our teachers regarding our behavior. and so many other fragments of our lives, neatly laminated and stored away for her quiet time and peaceful moments of reminiscing as she grew older. Mom was so sentimental in that way although many who knew her well, knew she was tough as nails, and could be as mean as a copperhead snake when provoked.I guess her hard life caused her to be tough, but underneath, she was as loving as any other Mother.She simply wasn't comfortable being a sweet little demure and needy sort of a lady. That just wasn't her style. Ask some of our neighbors. I'm sure they would agree. She could get loud when necessary.and she didn't care if the neighbors a half mile away heard her scolding us and trying her best to keep us on a straight and narrow path.I know when she read this story about the Meanest Mother, she did so with a chuckle, seeing herself and us kids in every line. There are a few things that may not fit our lives,but very few.........................................................."The Meanest Mother"
I had the meanest mother in the whole world. While other kids ate
candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal, eggs or toast. When others
had cokes and candy for lunch, I had to eat a sandwich. As you can
guess, my supper was different than the other kids' also.
But at least, I wasn't alone in my sufferings. My sister and two
brothers had the same mean mother as I did.
My mother insisted upon knowing where we were at all times. You'd
think we were on a chain gang. She had to know who our friends were and
where we were going. She insisted if we said we'd be gone an hour, that
we be gone one hour or less--not one hour and one minute. I am nearly
ashamed to admit it, but she actually struck us. Not once, but each
time we had a mind of our own and did as we pleased. That poor belt was
used more on our seats than it was to hold up Daddy's pants. Can you
imagine someone actualy hitting a child just because he disobeyed? Now
you can begin to see how mean she really was.
We had to wear clean clothes and take a bath. The other kids always
wore their clothes for days. We reached the height of insults because
she made our clothes herself, just to save money. Why, oh why, did we
have to have a mother who made us feel different from our friends?
The worst is yet to come. We had to be in bed by nine each night
and up at eight the next morning. We couldn't sleep till noon like our
friends. So while they slept-my mother actually had the nerve to break
the child-labor law. She made us work. We had to wash dishes, make
beds, learn to cook and all sorts of cruel things. I believe she laid
awake at night thinking up mean things to do to us.
She always insisted upon us telling the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, even if it killed us- and it nearly did.
By the time we were teen-agers, she was much wiser, and our life
became even more unbearable. None of this tooting the horn of a car for
us to come running. She embarrassed us to no end by making our dates
and friends come to the door to get us. If I spent the night with a
girlfriend, can you imagine she checked on me to see if I were really
there. I never had the chance to elope to Mexico. That is if I'd had a
boyfriend to elope with. I forgot to mention, while my friends were
dating at the mature age of 12 and 13, my old fashioned mother refused
to let me date until the age of 15 and 16. Fifteen, that is, if you
dated only to go to a school function. And that was maybe twice a year.
Through the years, things didn't improve a bit. We could not lie
in bed, "sick" like our friends did, and miss school. If our friends
had a toe ache, a hang nail or serious ailment, they could stay home
from school. Our marks in school had to be up to par. Our friends'
report cards had beautiful colors on them, black for passing, red for
failing. My mother being as different as she was, would settle for
nothing less than ugly black marks.
As the years rolled by, first one and then the other of us was put
to shame. We were graduated from high school. With our mother behind
us, talking, hitting and demanding respect, none of us was allowed the
pleasure of being a drop-out.
My mother was a complete failure as a mother. Out of four
children, a couple of us attained some higher education. None of us
have ever been arrested, divorced or beaten his mate. Each of my
brothers served his time in the service of this country. And whom do we
have to blame for the terrible way we turned out? You're right, our
mean mother. Look at the things we missed. We never got to march in a
protest parade, nor to take part in a riot, burn draft cards, and a
million and one other things that our friends did.
She forced us to grow up into God-fearing, educated, honest adults.
Using this as a background, I am trying to raise my three
children. I stand a little taller and I am filled with pride when my
children call me mean.
Because, you see, I thank God, He gave me the meanest mother in
the whole world.
written by Bobbie Pingaro (1967)

Petit Fours Anyone?


I collect all sorts of wax. Well, I really collect everything, but wax is my topic today.I have tackled this project before and it turned out so nice, I decided to try it again. This is my latest attempt at making Petit Fours. The last tray I made was a whole assortment of various types of cookies, candies, etc. Lots of different colors used, but today I had only melted enough wax for one color. Brown. So these are my chocolate covered petit fours.They look delicious, but believe me, they are not for human consumption. They are made of wood blocks covered with brown wax. I didn't take near the pains I should have to coat them more perfectly, but I was having a bit of trouble getting my wax melted like I needed, to get a better coating on them.They do make for a nice centerpiece. Now if I can only keep folks from biting into them. I don't want to get sued over a broken tooth.

I Love Making my Little Refrigerator Magnets.



I have been making refrigerator magnets for months now. Making them has become one of my favorite projects. I use a lot of recycled card stock from any boxed item that passes through my house. Many days when I have nothing better to do, I will sit down with my home made templates,my paints, my glue gun and Elmers glue, my many containers of all sorts of embellishments, and begin putting together various layers of card stock and sometimes fabric, until I come up with an appealing finished product, I seal the back of each project with white paper or brown paper to hide the printing on the card stock.then I glue 2 tiny magnets on the back of each. After gluing the 2 tiny magnets on the back, I then glue a matching piece of paper over the magnets to double insure that they stay put. The heart is a favorite shape of mine at the moment, but I have drawn and cut out several other shapes of templates from the same card stock,that I use for other projects.The fun is in mixing and matching colors and shapes and embellishments to form an appealing product. I always leave just enough space on the faces of each to place my sentiment. I keep a lot of generic sentiments printed up with my printer. I print the words very small, in most cases, so that I can glue them onto another tiny piece of colored card stock for the border around the sentiment before strategically placing it onto the finished magnet.I have given out so many of these magnets during the last few months along with my crocheted dish washing cloths. Some that I adored so,I literally hated to part with them, but I did take pictures so that I can duplicate some of them at a later date.