When Life Fits In A Box

This box has been around for as long as I can remember...literally. My mother got this box from her brother, who by the way drank a lot of this particular brand. Neither of my parents ever drank (once again)...literally.

 I'm not sure why they never bought photo albums to put all our family pictures in, they were all kept in this box.

When Tim and I went back to clean out the garage of our old house I spent about four hours going through three boxes of things my Diddy had saved over the years.

It was an emotional roller coaster.

I found years' worth of Sunday School lessons and talks he'd given at church and a nursing home where he and his best friend, Putt volunteered once a week.  Putt (worst singer ever) led the singing and Diddy gave the talks. My daughter put them all in chronological order today and it spanned three decades.

I can still vividly remember him, when I was young... sitting at our kitchen table to write them in his back handed lefty penmanship.

Life doesn't get any better than having Frank and Ann Leach for parents.

Seems they felt the same way about having each other.

He had also saved the card he gave my mother on their 25th wedding anniversary.

I sat in the garage of our old house, surrounded by the boxes, memories and dust of my life as I opened the envelope... strangely enough with my daughter's reversed name written on it.

As I read the card out loud to myself, my voice began to quiver after reading the first sentence.

My wish is for my own three kids to feel as lucky as I do.

The memories continued at the bottom of the Busch box.

My brother and sister's first baby shoes and the bands identifying them in the hospital after being born.

I was pretty sure I may have been the "oops" baby and by that time were tired of saving all our stuff.

I was hands down one ugly baby.

Age didn't improve me much. Okay, this first one below isn't so bad...but wait.

Yikes!

Then when they probably thought I couldn't look worse, I did.

It even continued to haunt me into my high school years but at least by then had some meat on my bones.

I hope they didn't pay a lot for my school pictures.


I remember the year our son, Zach took the worst school picture ever. I found the packet to order them in his backpack. They had options starting at a twenty five dollar package, going up to a seventy five dollar package.

I circled his photo, wrote by it "Are you freaking kidding me..." sent the package back, after keeping the free ID card just to have something to chuckle about and ordered nothing.

Even better was the way he had filled out the emergency ID info on the back of his card.

For Pete's sake, the kid was fourteen and didn't know how to spell "dirty"?

"Dirdy"?

Not to mention his distinguishing features:

"Ugly,  thin,  fast."

I think this was the year I decided we were really Clampetts.

Hour three into the box and half in the bag by then, discovered a Thank You note from our childhood pediatrician written to our mother. It was dated December 1976.

None of us kids were even going to him anymore by then but our momma still hand delivered a tin of homemade cookies and treats every Christmas to his office.

This letter was dated "Christmas Day 1976."

This man, our childhood doctor...  sat down on Christmas Day and penned a letter in his hard to read physician's scrawl to our momma, thanking her.

Compliments don't get much better than that.

The first thing I thought about was... this letter had been just written eight months before my mother's sudden death.

The second thing I thought about was his last sentence:

"May 1977 bring you and those fine children of yours, all that is good."

You know... 1977 didn't turn out all that great for us... but our two parents already made sure we had "all that is good."

We had them.

My life was contained in this in dusty, often shoved around and sometimes forgotten (but never lost) box, with all the photos, all the letters and cards and all the memories.

Going through this box of my life made me more importantly, realize what a cry baby I've been since moving to Orlando.

With all the ups and downs and all the uncertainty life throws my way...I'm still lucky.

I'm a Leach and couldn't be attached to a better clan.

Sometimes life kicks you in the pants.

I've had highs and lows and even sometimes felt like my pants were kicked and ripped beyond repair.

Nothing will ever be the same.

Always remember the past and cherish it dearly.

Life is all about change and moving ahead.

Cleaning out our old house and re discovering all these memories has made me realize...

I'm the one in control of my own destiny (with help from Above) and if where I came from has any indication or any part to do with it, is ridiculous to ever think I'd ever be a failure in life.

I'm already a loud mouth...and may be why.

I'm meant to be heard.

Laughter is my method of choice. Writing is my form of expressing it. The good, the bad and the ugly.

My life is my life. I can hate it or be depressed by it... or embrace it.

ca·thar·sis 

This blog, this exact point in my life is absolutely my catharsis.

Webster's defines it and  my blogging all too well:

"A purifying or figurative cleansing of the emotions, esp. as an effect of tragic drama. The relief of tension and anxiety by bringing re-pressed feelings and fears to consciousness."

So I'm getting  a little older and may take me a bit longer...but at least am still getting it.

Maybe Pink Floyd was right after all. (my favorite album of all time)

 

Don't be afraid to care.

COTTON

1. 
   

I Like A Four Day Winter

I was getting ready for work today...93 degrees outside. Standing in my closet getting my work clothes out looked at all the winter clothes I had hanging up...which is where all have remained. I've used a sweater two or three times and a hoodie maybe once.

I like it!

I planted a flower garden in November, bloomed less than three weeks later and hasn't stopped since. I pop off dead flowers and sprinkle them back into the soil and two weeks later have even more flowers coming up.

 I've never been able to keep a Boston fern alive but now have four thriving away in my new Sunshine state.

Plants which were barely limping along inside my house back home seem to like it outside here as well.

The other two ferns are on the front yard lawn because the crazy old man who used to own this house chopped down every tree on the property and left foot high stumps. I picked up these ferns for nine bucks a pop and placed them on the stumps...I hated seeing those stumps. Just bugged me.

Our older son TJ came by the other day with his fiancee and their two girls. The older one, Zeli said "I like your little palm trees."

Okay, so she's a Jaw Ja gal like me.

 You (peeps from Florida) can tell me all day long those squawking birds on the other side of our backyard fence are Egrets but for the life of me look just like pelicans, storks and flamingos. For Pete's sake...some of them are pink(ish) and a lot of them even stand around on one leg.

Trust me...if this thing below had been hanging out at a gas station in Newnan where I used to live in Georgia, a SWAT team would have responded. Two feet from my car, didn't move...even when I honked.

And don't even get me started on all the tiny gators scrambling around. (top right corner)

This one is on my kitchen window screen every single day. I can go outside for five minutes and see at least thirty shooting in every direction.

On the upside, are the only things which make Charlie (our bulldog) come alive and move. They drive him crazy(er) but has yet to catch one.

It's a whole new world for me (and my dogs) but are all beginning to acclimate.

Old women (and old dogs) don't really like cold weather. It gives us Bursitis (or something there abouts). Not sure what Bursitis really means but sounds like "all stove up" to me and  definitely know what that means.

Maybe that's why I need so much medicine for my"Rheuma-tis".

Simply said, it just feels better to finally feel better.

It's taken way too long for Kelly to get her groove back.

I got this now.


Til next time...COTTON

Change Can Be Good

Change never stops, that's why it's called change.

We got back on the road in Georgia for Orlando after three short days back at our old house. We did everything needed to be done. Filed our taxes, cleaned out and hauled off every bit of junk in the garage we'd left and packed up the car full with things I wanted, to take back with us to our new (albeit temp) home in Florida. Huge shout out of thanks to my brother in law who hauled all our crap to the dump in his trailer.

We were less than a mile from our old house when received a text from our oldest son's fiancee' living back in Orlando with him and their two small girls...our grandchildren. They asked if they could come over and talk with us when we got back to Orlando that afternoon?

My "momma" radar was immediately up.

If you can't text or call about it, it must be big.

They had moved to Orlando right before Tim did last January (over) a year ahead of me joining team "Sunshine State".

Our son had a great job opportunity and moved his new family to Orlando. TJ (our son) knocked it out of the park, quickly advanced from his original position and was their sole provider.

Seems TJ has been offered another chance for further advancement... in Charlotte, NC.

On top of that...he leaves for Charlotte this Monday.

His little harem will follow in a month or two.

I've been a terrible Granny since having grand kids.

Number one, I wasn't prepared to be a Granny.

Number two, wasn't prepared to leave my house of over twenty years and home state of over fifty six years.

Number three, totally wasn't prepared to lose my job...  all benefits which came with it and end up having to start all over again.

Change can be a tough thing to take when you're way over the halfway point in life.

I'd like to say it "took me a minute" but is more like it "took me almost six months."

I stayed in bed for a week before dragging myself out of my mental abyss. I absolutely detest starting a new job...but had to. If I had a dollar for every friend I had in Orlando would be a buck shy of a ten spot and included family.

I've only been to Chelsea and TJ's place a couple of times and know their feelings were hurt. It wasn't them, it was me.

Here's the thing.

"I" hurt.

It's not like I was tooling all around Orlando.

I went three places.

I went to work.

I went to the store (which luckily had a gas station) and I went to the bank.

It took me a month to find all three without help from a GPS.

I'm now on the cusp of normality... for me.

I'd felt abandoned after first moving here. I'd lost my job, all my friends and family from Georgia and all sense of myself.

I thought we'd moved to where our oldest son lived and I would have plenty of time to adjust.

Seems I forgot that "Change" thing.

TJ didn't.

TJ was two when I met him. Now he's almost thirty one with a family of his own.

He's making his own changes and choices now. He's stepping up and doing what it takes to provide for his own.

As sad as I feel about them leaving Orlando, just as I'm regaining my own (somewhat) sanity also feel proud that he is doing what is best for his own family.

Oh, there are plenty of bumps along the road of life and curves so sharp, you may run off the road for a bit... before holding the wheel steady and veering back on course.

I have total faith in TJ and his abilities to not only provide but prosper.

TJ may be my step son, but is the first kid I had... always will be. I wish nothing but happiness for him and pretty sure is capable of the task in front of him.

As he continues this journey called "Life" with his new family...

This song came to mind.

They will be just fine.

As much as Tim and I have been through and may go through...

I don't want to live without him.

If you sign up for the dance of life together...expect to stay until the lights come up.

Till next time...COTTON