Thank You Olivia

I saw my first Olivia concert at the age of 8 with my bestie Amber. Our moms surprised us with tickets for our birthdays and we were beyond excited.

Peering down at that far far away stage, my little legs dangling as they danced to the beat, I felt as if every dream I'd ever had in my whole eight years on Earth was coming true.

I gazed entranced, as Olivia sang with her angelic voice. I was awed by her ability to sing while jumping rope. At 8 I knew all about jump ropes, that was hard stuff.

She was simply amazing. I wanted to be her when I grew up. I was utterly in love, obsessed really, with everything Olivia after that. 

No family get together or neighborhood BBQ could be complete (or so I believed) without my lip synced rendition of Olivia's Greatest Hits Volume 2 or "acted out" scene from Grease.

There was the school talent show in which I sung Tuta La Vita complete with Oliviaesque sailer back ground dancers. Cheese cannot even begin to explain my adolescent-I-want-to- be-a-Newton-John-fantasy. 

How fun, and what a terrific cheerful humanitarian role model she was and still is. I see her as a beam of happiness illuminating moments of my life with song. Thanks Olivia. 

A Thousand Words

Photographs carry us through life. There are the pictures of our babyhood, graduations, wedding or weddings, and everything in between.

All I have to do is look around my house to stir up a whirlwind of emotion. Above my dining table hangs a treasured picture of my mom, and in my living room hangs a portrait of my son when he was three, a rare moment when I allowed him to play in the mud; my nephew at five blissfully experiencing snow for the first time, and a mantle filled with wonderful clips from the past.

My family has always been full of photographers. Amateurs like me who just love taking a pretty shot and professionals like my cousins. 

My grandfather owned his own studio, back in the day, where he experimented with  all kinds of photographic wonder. Therefore I've been lucky to have a rich assortment of family photos over the years. 

My mother loved photography. How I think she would marvel over the digital world we live in now. No more waiting to see how the rolls come out, instant reward in the palm of your hand, the ability to edit and instantly share your world with a friend.

I'm so very thankful to have an amazingly beautiful view of my childhood through her photographs, and I hope that my son will appreciate the photos I will someday leave for him.

One of my son's friends walked into my house a few years ago and said, "Wow coming here is like walking into a memory museum."

What a wonderful compliment, one I hope to always live up too.

My Grandpa with his trusty camera in hand.

A Tale of Two Sisters

My sister and I are so close that we finish each other’s sentences and often wonder who’s memories belong to who. We decided it might be fun if we each wrote a common topic on our blogs to see how similar (or not similar) our memories really are.  Our first topic: What a sister means to me. 

Read on!

________________

my mom and her sister with my sister and me

My mother had sisters. Close sisters. Sisters that she called on the phone constantly. Sisters that were her best-friends. At family gatherings they were always by each other’s side, baking together, each one doing her assigned task like a dance, chatting up a storm and singing. The singing was magnificent, voices rising and falling as one into perfect melody. True sisterhood and true love.

When my sister was born, I was just four days shy of turning two. Everyone told me that she was my present. She came home from the hospital on my actual birthday and we opened presents and ate cake so I knew it was true, my mom brought me a baby for my birthday. 

She was practically the same size as me from the start. There are sweet pictures of me holding my gigantic little sister and I swear her perfect round head dwarfs me. She was a beautiful baby, very round, and very blonde and they named her Shannon Renee.

Shannon loved her Johnny Jumper and I loved pushing her in it. When no one was looking I would push her just as hard as I could and scream, ”Wee baby!!!” As she flew through the air she would giggle and giggle, until she smacked into the wall, then she would cry. 

From the day she was born, I had a constant playmate. We fought like cats and dogs a lot of the time. Often accusing the other of “stealing” each others friends or my sister has a bad habbit of borrowing things “forever”, but she was always my confidant. 

When our mother died, her death brought us even closer. In a way my sister is like a mother figure to me and though I’m older I think that Shannon is the bossier of the two of us, although she just might tell you that I’m the bossy one. 

To sum my sister up isn’t easy. Shannon is the best mom in the world, the worst laundress. She breaks washing machines like a bad habit. She is remarkably talented, the person I go to for good and bad advice. She is my chauffer when I just can’t drive because I’m crazy afraid of driving, and she is my rock.

Thank God we were shown by my mom and her wonderful sisters the true meaning of sisterhood. In truth if you ask me what my sister means to me, all I really have to say is EVERYTHING! 

Me and Shannie

Click here to read my sister's version.