Category Archive:Family

Granny Wise

April 6th, 2013 / Categories: Family, Moose Nuggets, poetry, trifecta, words / 19 Comments »

Wash behind your ears
Clean between your toes

Don’t chew your fingernails
Don’t pick your nose

Don’t cross your eyes
Your face will surely freeze

Remember, cover your mouth
Whenever you must sneeze

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Trifecta’s weekend challenge asked for some advice. I haven’t read anyone else’s advice, but I wouldn’t be TOO surprised if someone doesn’t say something along this line. Edited to add another couplet to rhyme “freeze”. It is said that a poem is never finished, just abandoned.

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Not part of the original 33, but added because I don’t want to miss an opportunity to do so – esp. after the full month I have had with training and Alaska Governor Sean Parnell’s 4th annual Choose Respect event, I give you the following advice I would offer a son, if I had one – and what I say to my grandsons.
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My Son

If you ask for the cherry
from her sundae and
she says No
honor that No
Someday she may offer it
Treat the offer with respect
Always respect
Always love
Always, my son
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🙂 enjoy . . . and do go over to check out the newest editor and even try your hand at wisdom sharing.

Up and Down Day

March 23rd, 2013 / Categories: Family, Velvet Verbosity, words / 6 Comments »

I was seven or eight. Remembering which rent house we lived in helps put a date on it.

It had been an up and down day. Daddy had been drinking – again – out of work – again – my sister and I were quarreling – again. He’d had enough. Sent us to bed. We fussed. He heard.

Mom came to us. Whispered. “He wants me to spank you. You’re just little girls. I won’t spank you. You must be brave and cry when I tell you to.” Then, as she lovingly tucked us into bed she slapped her own bare legs. “Cry now, girls.”
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The 100 Word Challenge this week is TUCK. This is written in honor of my mother who suffered unthinkable things at the hands of my father. She protected my younger sister and me many times. This is a true story. My mother was a survivor. I wish I could tell her how much that night meant to me, even though I did not understand it at the time.

The Debut

March 12th, 2013 / Categories: Family, trifecta / 16 Comments »

ohhhbetty / Foter.com / CC BY


One last mirror check. Hair: perfectly coiffed. Makeup: no blotches, no coloring outside the lines on lips or eyes. Cheryl dabbed at an invisible (to all but Cheryl) blotch on the lipstick.

Stepping back from the vanity, another check of the outfit so painstakingly chosen for this debut. The gown was robin’s egg blue with swaths of sequins and pearls. The back proffered an alluring split to the thigh. The front low enough for cleavage to peek through enticingly.

Gems sparkled from Cheryl’s ears and throat and rings adorned fingers red-tipped with polish.

At the bottom of seamed, silk encased legs . . . sparkling silver pumps – size 10E.

The stage manager hurried to Cheryl’s side, trying to hurry things along. “It’s time, Max, come on.”

“There is no Max here, you dolt. Only Cheryl. Cheryl will come when Cheryl is ready.”

“Well, CHERYL had best get ready soon, or I’m going to the next act. Just because this is your first time, honey, that don’t mean the crowd won’t get restless and boo you off the stage. Now, you coming or not?”

A flip, a twirl, and a sigh preceded Cheryl’s walk onto the stage. There were no boos that night. Cheryl entranced the crowd and loved every minute of it.
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This is dedicated to those in my family who walk the walk as they talk the talk. More power to you!

The trifecta challenge this week is TIME used in the third definition:

1a : the measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues : duration
b : a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future
c : leisure [time for reading]
2: the point or period when something occurs : occasion
3a : an appointed, fixed, or customary moment or hour for something to happen, begin, or end [arrived ahead of time]
b : an opportune or suitable moment —often used in the phrase about time [about time for a change]

Gramma Time

March 11th, 2013 / Categories: Family, Moose Nuggets, Moosin Around / 1 Comment »

Stepping away from the writerly side of the Moose and posting some pics from the weekend. Took youngest daughter and two of the granddaughters to Anchorage for a spring break-like weekend. We walked (and walked and walked some more) through the Dimond Center Mall – Oil & Vinegar shop and Build – a – Bear were the fave stops . . . oh, and the elevator. Sigh, you would think we lived in a small town or something. 🙂

For your viewing pleasure I give you the girls and some of the activities we did – more to follow: (thumbnails – click for larger view)



Fun at the Anchorage Museum – lots more pics taken, but these were fun. Can you tell what on us is coldest? And, in the second, a re-enactment of daughter and niece many years ago (about 25) when THEY were 13 and visiting the museum for the first time – trying to touch the moose and hearing over the speaker: don’t touch the moose. They looked around – saw nobody and tried again only to hear: I SAID, DON’T TOUCH THE MOOSE! lol. These girls did not try to touch the moose.
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Fun at Alaska Wildberry Products – home of the largest chocolate waterfall and some pretty big critters, too. Yes, the girls are putting their hands into the moose’s nostrils – sigh.

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Fun at the Alaska Rock Gym. The girls met Josh and learned to harness up, then to practice on the small wall, first with Josh and then with Mama/Auntie as the belay-er. They did some rock climbing without ropes on the smaller walls and then Auntie watched over them with ropes and much fun. We had a couple of tired girlies by the end of the day.

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But, not TOO tired, to do some cutting up with the giant scissors at Great Cuts.

We both took many more pictures and even some video which may be shared later. Hope you enjoyed a bit of our spring break fun.

Hearts and Pups

February 18th, 2013 / Categories: Family, Moose Nuggets, trifecta, words / 21 Comments »


Ah, my girl
your incessant chatter does
exhaust me
my ears bleed verbs
and nouns and
hormones
and joy
interminable
always and forever
joy
you talk
we listen
you love
we receive
thankfully

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The Pup, granddaughter #2, is a chatterer. We tease her sometimes about how she only is quiet when she sleeps . . . but then she talks in her sleep. Her mama says she makes our ears bleed.

But it is such happy chatter and she has such LOVE to share . . . like the heart she drew in the snow on my car this morning as she left for school. I had to take a picture and share it here . . . along with my 33 words for Trifecta’s challenge EXHAUST.

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