Photo: Bike Riding in Yosemite National Park

Blog Every Day in May, Prompt 17

At Yosemite

A favorite photo of yourself . . .

It’s hard to pick a favorite photo because I have so many family and travel photos that hold wonderful memories. But here’s one taken at  Yosemite National Park, August 12, 2001.

I was on a trip to Yosemite with my step-daughter, Lisa; her husband Randy; grandsons, Evan, Eric, Ian, Aron, and a friend; and niece-in-law Keely Hall.

We rented a cabin in Yosemite Valley and went hiking or biking every day.

This trip was perfect.

Weather: sunny and warm with cool nights for good sleeping.

Spectacular scenery: Yosemite Falls, Ribbon Falls, Half Dome (8842 ft.), El Capitan (7569 ft.), Tuolumne Meadows.

Good times with family. Here’s a picture of the rest of the crew. And for the record, we did not see any bear. Thank goodness for that.

The Last Meow.

Can I go camping, too? I’ll bring my own tent.

Meow for now.  =<^;^>=

A “Little Bobby” Story from My Childhood in Vineland, NJ

Blog Every Day in May. Prompt Number 18: Tell a story from your childhood.

I posted about Mom, Ellen Mason Carlton Kroelinger, and our life in our big chaotic household with ten kids and two adults for Mother’s Day. We also had one or two dogs, a dozen cats, and a wacky duck to add to the confusion. You can read that background to this story here in “Missing My Mom.”

We kiddos all have funny memories of growing up on Brewster Road in Vineland, New Jersey. One story in particular surfaces at almost every family reunion: The Ten Siblings and The Incredible Disappearing-Sticky-Cinnamon-Bun Story.

With ten children and two adults eating at every meal, Mom had to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Though the kids helped in turn, she still prepared the bulk of the meals. For dinner, Mom had to cook a dozen of everything: twelve ears of corn, twelve potatoes, twelve pork chops, twelve big meatballs, or twelve whatever happened to be on the menu that night.

Mom didn’t have to bake bread though, because our old reliable Palmonari Bakery delivery truck came by every afternoon to drop off giant loaves of crusty Italian bread. We all loved to go out and check out the goodies that Joe, the driver, had tucked in a long pull-out drawer in the back of the Palmonari truck. Sometimes he had crumb buns (yum), and sometimes he had sticky cinnamon buns (double yum).

Joe was always full of news of the neighborhood, and since we were near the end of his run, he often had a few minutes to chat. The problem was that sometimes his goody drawer was empty when he came to our house.

On our luckiest days we got cinnamon buns.

How many cinnamon buns are in a dozen? Twelve?

Nope. Thirteen. Palmonari’s sold a ”Baker’s Dozen” which has thirteen delectable sticky cinnamon buns.

Little Bobby, the darling of the family.

Do you get the picture? Twelve family members eat their allotted cinnamon bun, sitting around the twelve-person dining room table. One cinnamon bun remains on Mom’s big, white porcelain platter in the center of the table. Ten children with bottomless pits for stomachs stare at this incredible, delectable bun, their childish minds whirring at the speed of lightning, calculating how best to claim that last mouth-watering, caramelized-brown-sugar-pecan-nut-and-raisin-topped cinnamon bun before anyone else could get it.

There are conflicting reports on how this all came about, but everyone seems to agree that sweet little Bobby, the youngest sibling, Mom’s little darling, grabbed the bun and shoved it in his mouth before anyone could think of a more democratic way to handle the situation. And being the youngest, he was the most capable of getting away with this kind of self-centered assertiveness. First off, he was little, and second, he sat in the coveted, protected spot next to Mom at the end of the big table. Little Bobby could do no wrong in Mom’s eyes. Of course, Bobby was special in our eyes, too. And he was so clever that we all had to laugh at his high jinks. Oh well, who needed that cinnamon bun anyway?

The Last Meow

Is it time to eat yet?   What? All I wanted was a little snack to tide me over until dinner time. No big deal. I can still eat my dinner.

I promise!

Meow for now.  =<^:^>=

Rough Lot. Smooth Lot. We Get Through and Learn.

Blog Every Day in May, May 16. Something difficult in your “lot in life” and how you’re working to overcome it.

So much has changed in my life over the years. Difficulties have come and gone, and I am the wiser and braver for it all.

Now in retirement, I can look back and put the rough patches in perspective. How did that struggle ultimately help me?

Whether the rough patches related to family issues, relationship issues, work issues, or personal/spiritual issues, the result is the same. I made it through.

That is not to minimize the difficult spots. Some were tough. The most difficult was the death of my first husband from cancer. I saw cancer up front, close, and personal, and I didn’t like it at all. Cancer caused a lot of physical and emotional pain for me and my family. But even that pain changed me. I became much more aware of others around me who suffered silently with their own pain. I have tried to develop a more compassionate and encouraging personality.

Here I am now.  I have a lot:

My-Heck-of-A-Guy (my newish husband, Ken) who doesn’t mind being teased and even reads my posts. We met fifty years ago and married eight years ago. (It took him a long time to make up his mind.)

My family. Though my family has shrunk through death over the years, we remain close. We have lost both parents, one brother, and one sister, four nephews, two great nieces, and two spouses. Several members of my family now have serious medical issues. We no longer have the mass holiday parties we used to have, and sometimes we have no party at all. But life goes on. We have grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and friends’ children. We celebrate life with them.

Mom’s 90th Birthday-Kroey Krewe Family Reunion

My good friends. I have lived in a number of places in this world (New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Alaska, Hong Kong) and I have made good friends in each of those places. Moving to new places means some loss of contact with these friends. But now with social media, especially Facebook, I can maintain those friendships with a few words, a picture, or a joke.

My faith. Where would I be without this? It is my foundation and my source of strength.

Time to write. This is the biggest blessing for me. I have always been too busy working to take time to write, even though I loved teaching writing to students. Now in retirement, I can write to my heart’s content. The blogging challenges have gotten me going again, and I have met such good and encouraging writers in the blogosphere.

My lot in life now is good. My only minor difficulties are a slow Internet and changing eyesight that comes with age. I can deal with these.

I know. I am soooo cute.

The Last Meow

Don’t forget us. We have made your life pleasanter, haven’t we? I see you laughing when I do cute things. Wait. You’re not laughing at me, are you? Cause if you are, no more cute things!

Meow for now.  =<^:^>=

15 A Day in the Life

Blog Every Day in May. Prompt 15. A Day in the Life: A Typical Day

Is there a typical day when you are retired? Yes, no, and maybe.

I woke up thinking about everything I had to do to get ready to leave for a BIGGGG college weekend. Gordon College, my alma mater, invites fifty-year graduates (Class of ’63) to join in the ceremonial procession with new graduates. This sounded like fun, so my friend and classmate, Judith Krom, and I decided to gather our regalia and join the fun.

Then the phone calls started. My sister Bev called to give the latest report on my sister MsJoanne (hospitalized because of a recent stroke.) Report: No change in her condition, not better, not worse. My brother, Adam, called, and we made plans to visit MsJoanne on Thursday. Bev planned to visit today. (MsJoanne is in intensive care with restrictions on visits.)

Next, my friend Ron arrived to dig up a clump of hosta in my yard. A few days ago, I mentioned that my hosta needed to be divided (one clump blocked the lawn sprinkler) and invited him to take some for his yard.  While I had other things on today’s agenda, I decided to go out and help him.

Hosta plants before the attack.

Ron digs his clump of hosta.

Although Ron took half the original clump, the remaining hosta still blocked the sprinkler.

I dug out one more clump of hosta, divided it into three new plants, and planted these out back in my yard.

Happy hosta in their new spacious living quarters.

I stopped to take a picture of this rhododendron in my back yard.

The sprinkler is still not clear of hosta, but that’s enough for today. I have to get back to my trip prep list. I have miles to go before I sleep. (Recognize that Robert Frost line? I wrote about this poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,”  in  the 2013 A to Z Challenge). Mom would say that we gave the hosta a “lick and a promise,” meaning that we would get back to it another day.

My blog for May 12 had not been published, even though May 13 and May 14 blogs have been. Sunday’s blog was too long (1400 words) because it was about my mom, and I had a lot to say about her. I pulled out a couple of sections that could be published on other days, and then I proofed and proofed and proofed the post and published. (Errors sneak in when I am not looking, so I have to be extra careful.)

Errands filled the rest of the day: haircut, manicure (French!), gas fill-up for car, new purse, new GPS (our last one had a “fatal error” mid-way on our last trip), blog, laundry, dinner, blog. Midway, I talked with my friend Connie about a writing workshop we plan to attend in September. We’re all signed up.

This has not been a typical day, but typically these things happen.

The Last Meow

Sometimes ya gets so tired ya falls asleep wherever ya falls asleep.

Well, this is my typical day. Can’t think of a better way to spend my time. Why worry when you can nap? Anywhere. Any time.

Meow for now.  ={^:^}=

Missing My Mom

Blog Every Day in May, Prompt 12.

What (or who) do you miss? (a person, a thing, a place, a time in your life)

May 12 was Mother’s Day, so a tribute to my mom is in order.

My mom, Ella Mason Carlton Kroelinger, was born in Saluda, Virginia on March 21, 1909. She passed away at the age of almost 92 in February, 2000, in Vineland, NJ. (Mom later changed her name to Ellen.)

Mom grew up on a plantation in Virginia, but because of family health issues, the family moved to Southern New Jersey (Vineland) where the weather was supposedly not as hot and humid as in Virginia. (Wrong!) She had a eight siblings: Richard, Bob, Louise, Pearl, Annie, Inez, Virginia, and Minnie.

Carlton family in 1916

Grandmother Minnie E. Carlton feeding the chickens at Brewster Road and Vine Road.

Grandfather, Richard Alvin Carlton, Sr., and his chickens.

Mom married Adam Emil Kroelinger, on November 7, 1928, and over the years, nine children joined the family (six girls, three boys): Joyce, Joan, Adam, Shirley, Beverley, Bill, Judith, Janice, and Robert. And since nine children made for an odd number, they added a foster child, Charles, making a round dozen in the family.

Times were tough economically in 1929, so the family lived with Daddy’s family on my grandfather’s farm for a while. In August of 1938, reportedly without telling my mother, my father bought a big, two-story, needs-a-lot-of-work house on Brewster Road, along with three acres of good farm land, for the whopping deposit of one dollar. The owner of the house, a widow named Martha Pennock, sold the property to my father for a total purchase price of $2301.00, a fortune in those days.

Over the years, the house grew to be a beautiful home, graced with forest-green shutters, a screened porch, and wide green-and-white striped awnings. Towering oaks and maple trees surrounded the house. Mom planted red and pink azaleas, lavender rhododendrons, cherry trees, and dogwood trees all around the yard. She loved her beautiful flowering yard and happily worked many hours in it, planting petunias, pansies, asters, and marigolds to keep the yard colorful. The kids, however, complained about how much grass had to be cut (a least an acre) and how hard it was to pull all those hoses and sprinklers out to water the lawn during the hot summer days.

The Kroelinger house on North Brewster Road, Vineland, NJ Photo: Joyce Kroelinger Ellis, 2000

Our huge vegetable garden out back supplied us with many a meal. I remember running out to the garden before dinner many times to gather lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and scallions for our really “Jersey-Fresh” evening salad. We all raved about Mom’s famous Italian dressing, but none of us can make it like she made it.

Mom kept busy during the summer canning and freezing crop after crop of tomatoes, green beans, lima beans, rhubarb, eggplant, corn, and peas. We all loved Mom’s southern fried zucchini, and we had this family favorite a lot during the summer. You know how prolific zucchini is!

Our neighbor, Mr. Cervini, had a peach orchard adjacent to our property, and out of self-defense and to keep us kids out of the orchard, he gave Mom a weekly basket of peaches in season. Summer desserts featured these delectable peaches sliced and sweetened with a dash of sugar, and on our lucky days, with a little vanilla ice cream. The strawberries in our own patch were excellent, too. We picked cherries off of Aunt Annie’s trees and plums off our own tree.

Our lives seemed to center around the long maple twelve-seater dining room table. With two pull-out leaf extensions, the table was always stretched to capacity. When company came, and they often did, the aunts and uncles commandeered the adult table, and the kids sat at a special kids’ table on one side of our huge dining room. These family get-togethers were the best. Aunts and uncles and cousins came from miles around. Mom cooked for days, and we always had a feast with food supplied from our garden and grandfather’s farm, as well as chicken or turkey from Uncle Bob’s farm.

The aunts and uncles gathered frequently in the evening for coffee and news. (L to R: Virginia, Ellen, Inez, Minnie, Annie, Louise, Daddy, Uncle Bob-Uncle Ham to the kids) Here they are in the kitchen of the Carlton homestead on Brewster and Vine Roads in Vineland, NJ. Uncle Ham was always making us kids laugh.

I never saw my mother angry. When the kids acted up, she simply said, “Your father will be home soon.” And that was enough to straighten us out in a hurry.

Mom always called me “Nan,” and I never found out the story behind that nickname. I asked her once, and she couldn’t remember how that name came to be. Of course, my brothers had great fun with my nickname. “Nannygoat, Nannygoat” became the familiar taunt. But, haha, I got back at my brother Bill: “Billygoat, Billygoat.” We traded barbs until Mom made us stop with “Your father will be home soon” reminder.

Honestly, I don’t know how she managed to take care of all of us. It must have been like herding cats, each of us going full speed in a thousand different directions, all at the speed of light and at the highest decibel levels.

Family. Feasts. Fun. That’s how I remember Mom. She was a special lady, and we all miss her very much.

Apology to Readers of Blog Every Day

Blog Every Day in May. Prompt 13. Issue a public apology.

This is an appropriate one for today. It just so happens that I missed Sunday’s post, number 12, as well as Monday’s post, number 13.

I have an excuse. Honest. Actually, I have several excuses.

1. My May 12 blog is about “What or who do you miss?” That post fell on Mother’s Day, so naturally, I thought about Mom. But as I wrote about her, I found I had a lot to say and couldn’t quite get the post finished. In fact, I am still tweaking my writing today. I hope to add the Mother’s Day post tonight after My-Heck-of-A-Guy does his picky-picky edit. With more than 250 words, he will take a bit longer to knit-pick proofread. I do appreciate his willingness to do this. Missing a typo or other error  is easy to do when you proofread your own work. (You bloggers know that!)

2. I got a call yesterday around 1 pm that my sister, MsJoanne, is back in the hospital. She apparently had another stroke just after lunch yesterday. (I talked about her first major stroke here.)  She is still in the ICU unit of the hospital and on hourly monitoring. She was alert yesterday and could answer the typical questions (name, birthplace, president, year…), and she also gave important contact phone numbers to the doctor. My sister, Bev, and I dropped everything and went to see her.  At this point she has not stabilized and still has some bleeding in her brain. This is an hour-by-hour situation. Bev and MsJoanne’s son, Mark, visited today. I will go tomorrow.

Ms. Joanne (after her first stroke, in the wheelchair), Adam (my brother), and Gunner (the community dog) at Juniper Village where Ms. Joanne resides.

At any rate, I have gotten back to my blogging this morning, and just published (out-of-order) post number 14. That one was easy and fun to write: Ten Favorite Things. And number 13 is just about finished. Now, because I will be away for four days, I must try to get a few posts ahead. I guess I won’t be leaving this computer chair for quite a while today.

The Last Meow

Well, yes, I must admit that I get embarrassed sometimes, although I won’t admit it to my owners. They don’t-have-to-know. They would just laugh.

What? This is just a cat collar. Stop laughing!

Meow for now. ={*;*}=

Ten Things That Make Me Happy

Blog Every Day in May. Prompt 14:  Ten Things That Make Me Happy 

1. Singing with Julie Andrews,”These are a few of my favorite things: Whiskers on kittens…” All kittens as a matter of fact. And all cats, too. Here is a picture of me as a little girl with Thomasoulo, my father’s cat. My Mom told me once when I was a little tyke that I was terribly upset because my little brother, Bobby, was teasing Thomasoula and making him nervous!  No. Not sweet little Bobby! Never. He was Mom’s little angel.

Five-year-old Janice and the family cat, Thomasoulo.

2. Checking the flowers that bloom in the spring. It doesn’t matter what kind of flowers, I love them. I think I take after Mom on this one. She had a green thumb and could raise almost any flower. I didn’t inherit her green thumb, but I still love flowers.

Daffodils on the Appalachian Trail. Photo: Terry Bliss

3. Singing with the choir at Margate Community Church, Margate, NJ. My husband, Ken, (My-Heck-of-A-Guy) has been singing with this choir for over 35 years. I wandered in with him one day about nine years ago, and they let me stay. We have made some very good friends here.

4. Singing old hymns at church. So many hymns remind me of my growing-up years, sitting next to Mom or Daddy, singing away in the ole Sunday evening hymn sing at Covenant Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Mom used to love, “I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses.” (“He Walks with Me”) I think of her every time we sing this song in our Margate church. You can listen to it here.

Mom and Daddy, 1952, Long View, TX. at Uncle Bob Ellis’s graduation from Le Tourneau Tech Institute

5. Eating out with My-Heck-of-A-Guy and having Cassie and Mandy join us when they can. Cassandra Heck and Amanda Heck are a barrel of fun with their unlimited imaginations and their playful spirits. This is my favorite picture of the two of them together. Don’t you just want to laugh looking at the picture?

Cassie and Mandy entertaining…

6. Seeing new pictures of my grandchildren posted on Facebook. I just don’t see these grandchildren enough because they live in California, Arizona, and Tennesee.

Grandchildren climbing all over Grandpa Ken

7. Walking on the beach and getting sand between my toes, and then later walking on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ

Eating ice cream on the Ocean City Boardwalk with my grandchildren and their cousins.

8. Watching thunder and lightning storms in the summer. These storms remind me of all the times we sat as kids on our old front porch watching the lightning in the distance and waiting for the heavy rain to start. Something about a lightning storm is magical.

It was a dark and stormy night.

9. Traveling to new places with friends. It doesn’t matter where or when, anytime a friend says, “Let’s go,”  I am ready. Sometimes we have to wait a bit until our money coffers refill, but that’s okay, we still do it.

Christine, Inger-Anne, Jan, Carol in Sienna, Italy, May, 2012

10. Looking through old family pictures. I have recently come across a new source for pictures (Ancestry.com, where my cousin, Bill Swartz, posted family pictures from ages ago). I have been posting some of these old pictures on Facebook and playing guessing games with my siblings and their children. Who remembers? This has been a lot of fun.

Grandmother Minnie E. Carlton feeding the chickens at Brewster Road and Vine Road.

“These are a few of my favorite things…”

The Last Meow.

Of course, I have something to say!  Sitting in the sun is one of my very favorite things! Meow for now.   ={^:^}=

Twitter Bio in Ten Words

Blog Every Day in May, Prompt 11.

Sell yourself in 10 words or less. (short version)

Aspiring writer, retired educator, laughs, blogs, travels, cooks, enjoys life.

You may want to read the more humorous version of this prompt answer at “For Sale: One Aspiring Writer”

Quizzical Cat photo: Cassandra Parker.

Mizzy Heck’s Cat: The Last Meow.

What? She wrote a post in ten words. Impossible.

Did you see those cat impersonators over at Mizzy Heck’s other post?

“For Sale: One Aspiring Writer”

Meow for now.  =(*;*)=

For Sale: One Aspiring Writer

Blog Every Day in May, Prompt 11. Sell yourself in 10 words or less. (long version)

Really?

Oh, I guess I shouldn’t take that question literally.

I thought I would put my husband, My-Heck-of-A-Guy (MyHOG), on the spot and ask him to identify my best qualities. That makes good breakfast conversation, don’t you think?

His first answer did not win any stars in my book: “Gee, I’m drawing a mental blank here. Give me a few minutes to think.”

I set out the Big Boggle three-minute timer and turned it over. That added only a puny bit of pressure to his perplexing problem.

Ummm. Sweet.   Ummm. Caring.    Ummm. Intelligent.    Ummm. pretty.   Ummm. Sociable.

These first five were awful slow in coming. I turned the Big Boggle timer again.

He counted the first five qualities on his one hand, then looked at his other hand and calculated how many more he needed. The pressure was building. Five words in three minutes? Wow. Tough task.

Affectionate.   Compassionate.  Strong faith.  Inquisitive.

One more finger to go.

Full of zest. Done.  Oh, one more? Eleven? Bonus!

You sing with golden, dulcet, melodious tones in the choir.

Okay, so he is tone-deaf. It doesn’t matter. I’ll take any compliment, even if it sounds like a bit of philandering purple prose.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief and went back to his newspaper, thinking he was off the hook.

I don’t know. I had to turn the Big Boggle timer three times to get his full answer. Maybe he’ll have to take me out to dinner to soothe my wounded feelings. Ya think?

The Last Meow.

Hey, who is this guy impersonating me, The Great Catsby? He has some nerve.

Check out these other twelve fantastic cat impersonators.  (Imposters!) They’re all there: Nick Cataway, Daisy and Tom Bucatahan, J. Cat Baker, Meyer Catsheim, Myrtle and George B. Wilcat, and even old Cat Eyes. As Zena Wozniak, the originator of this clever report says, “Nothing does coddled upper-class ennui better than cats.”

Meow for now. ={^;^}=

(You may want to check the short version of this post here: My Twitter Bio in Ten Words.)

Embarrassed? Moi?

Blog Every Day in May. Prompt 10. Most Embarassing Moment

Me? Do something to embarrass myself? Well, yes. Regularly. Don’t you?

I did it almost daily in elementary school. I didn’t have the right clothes or the right shoes or the right hair cut. And I couldn’t hit the softball worth a darn on the playground. (And, yes, we played in dresses in those old-timey days.)  Kids teased me.  I was painfully shy, and every tease added to my shyness.  

In retrospect, I have to say that those monumental moments of childhood embarrassment amount to a mere nothing at this point. Once I realized that other people’s opinions about me didn’t matter, then the teasing didn’t matter either. I focused more on other things and learned how to hit the softball better. By seventh grade, my classmates realized that I was one mean pitcher, and I got chosen for teams early on in the starting lineup.

Of course, as adults, our children have done their rightful duties by saying things or doing things at such opportune times that maximum benefit could be made out of the embarrassment. There was the time that. . . well, never mind. No point in going into all that. Besides, my children have children of their own now! HaHa.

Now, as an adult in my, ummmm, more mature years, I feel embarrassed when I am the center of attention. I have made my My-Heck-Of-A Husband (MHOAH) PROMISE that he would never, ever give me a surprise birthday party, anniversary party, or any other party where I would be the center of attention. It’s written in our marriage contract, right next to the clause where he promises to do all the vacuuming, and I promise to watch. We review this contract periodically, so HE KNOWS. You can see that our marriage is loaded with Double Happiness! (Double Happiness in Marriage, Guaranteed!)

She’s got it right!

I let it go by when MHOAH told our church choir director, Glen, that it was my birthday last month and had the choir sing to me after our Thursday night practice. That error on MHOAH’s part was marginal. Noted, but not in concrete. I turned it around by announcing that MHOAH would bring cookies to choir practice the following week. Then when he forgot, someone in the choir embarrassed HIM by asking where they were. Got him there, didn’t I?

The Last Meow

What some humans do to us cats is embarrassing. A pink cat? Give me a break. This is not fair.

Dogs and cats are not supposed to be friends. So DO NOT tell anyone about this embarrassing moment in my cat life.

Meow for now.  ={^;^}=