Quirkiness Runs Amok

I have been "tagged" by my sister in the great quirks confessional. Unfortunately for me, many of the best family quirks have already been spoken for.
I too have itchy ears. I buy my q-tips in double packs. They are not only handy for taking care of that inner ear itch they are great for getting mascara out from under you eyes.
I also must confess to being an obessional readder. I too have been known to stay up until all hours of the night trying to finish a book or get to a "good" stopping place. I don't do it as much as I did when I was younger because Dennis makes me turn off the light. Not sure why, since he is such a sound sleeper.
So when I to think of some original quirks I must confess that I kind of drew a blank at first. I had to think about it a bit. I didn't want to ask any of the boys for fear of what I might find out. I did finally come up with one or two. Maybe lame, but my quirks nevertheless. Here they are:
I hate to call people on the phone. I think I may have gotten this from dad. I never liked it as a kid and I still have qualms about it as an adult. Even if I know that someone is expecting my call I still really have to think about it. I got better about it when I became a receptionist. Answering the phone is not the problem because people are calling me. It's when I have to call other people that I get all nervous. I have to think long and hard about what I am going to say. I especially hate it when I have to call someone to ask for a favor or question. Sometimes when I hang up I go over the whole conversation thinking about what I might have said badly or might be misconstrued. Call me an insecure caller.
I hate waiting at stop lights. I like to take backroads with no stoplights everywhere I go. I have all these routes to most visited places that are unusual just to avoid stoplights. When i ride places with Dennis I have to grit my teeth because he is just to opposite. He goes on major roads with all the stop lights. Drives me crazy.
I hate chipped fingernails. They totally drive me crazy. When I was younger I was a nail biter (a nasty habit to break). I think I developed this habit largely from my dislike of snaggy nails. I would do anything to make the nail smoother, including biting it down to the quick. Of course I outgrew that habit, but I still can't stand nails that catch on things. I now keep my nails cut short purposely so they are less prone to breaking.
That's the best I could come up with. I am sure that I could come up with some other things (especially if I asked the boys). They are kind of lame, but I have alot of the family quirks besides the two I mentioned. Very funny how things run in a family!
I choose not to tag anyone because I think everyone has beend tagged. It is fun to think about quirks in a family though. Genetics or environment? Who knows!

Love/Hate Relationship & Other Stuff

I hate this tree! I love this tree! This is big, beautiful, amazing tree is across the street from our house. It is difficult to really appreciate how big it is without seeing it in person--especially when the photo is not the greatest. I love it in the summer when it is in full bloom. It has about a billion, maybe even a trillion leaves on it it. I hate it in the fall when the billion or so leaves begin to fall. If we are lucky, the prevailing winds are blowing in a northerly direction and the leaves mainly end up in the park behind the tree. If we are unlucky, the prevailing winds are blowing in a southerly direction and they end up in our yard, against our house, all over the street. Even if we are lucky there are still a few thousand or so leaves from this tree that end up in our yard. I have already filled up our gigantic yard waste container twice with leaves from this tree and the much smaller tree that is in front of our house. (I love our tree in the spring when it is full of plum blossoms).
Now Cooper, he loves the tree across the street! (As you can see in the following pictures.) He went over Sunday afternoon and took over this pile of leaves that some other kids had left. As you can see, there are plenty of leaves to make and remake again and again, one heaping, mound of leaves that any boy would love. Cooper had a heyday.
What's not to love about a big pile of leaves? At least when you are not in charge of raking them up. Fun times!

Groucho & Cowboy Dennis (the other stuff)
I guess Sunday was a banner day (or at least a day worthy of blogging about). Oma & Opa came over for Sunday dinner. After dinner we generally end up sitting around the dining room table chatting about this and that. This Sunday somehow the topic of discussion got on to facial hair or the lack of it. Spencer who is the throes of puberty insisted that he did not have any facial hair. I guess if it is blonde, and a little hard to see that means it's not there. Next thing you know, Oma has my mascara in hand and is "highlighting" Spencer's facial hair. I don't know whether to comment on his Italian heritage showing through or his resemblance to Groucho Marx. Needless to say there was alot of laughter that went on, but it did illustrate how much facial hair he actually has. It did make him look quite a bit older too. And yes, as you can see in the picture without Dennis, Oma colored in his eyebrows too. She did better with the eyebrows than the moustache because I suggested that perhaps she should brush against the grain of the hair rather than with it. You never know what hilarity while happen when Oma & Opa come for dinner! (And no, Dennis is not sleepy or high in this picture--just caught him between expressions I guess)

This last picture is for Ann. Don't know whether she ever looks at the blogs, but this one is for her. She had a hat much like this the last time Dennis saw her in the summer. He commented about how cool he thought it was and she offered to get him one. When the boys and I were down for a visit this summer, she gave me this hat for him. I promised that I would e-mail her a picture of him in it. I never got around to it and was reminded when we saw her at grandma's 100th that I needed to do that. So, since I was in a picture taking kind of mood this weekend, here's the picture for Ann. Ride em, cowboy Dennis!! (I think the hat loses a little authenticity when paired with the sweatshirt, but what can you expect for a city slicker!)

Grandma Turns 100!

Who in their right mind would travel 1000 miles round trip in two days just for a birthday party?! That would be us because it is not every day you have a Grandma who turns 100! That's right, this weekend we celebrated 100 years of life for my dad's mom, Lydia Vaden and it was on her actual birthday to boot, November 1. It seems like a crazy thing to do, but it was important to my dad and well, it was important for me too, so Dennis went along with it all.

We left Friday after school and drove halfway which was Pendleton, Oregon roughly four hours away. We enjoyed a dip in the hotel hot tub so I guess that almost made it seem like it was a vacation. We drove the final four hours Saturday morning and arrived in Moutain Home, Idaho at about 2pm Idaho time. Grandma's party did not start until 3pm, but we enjoyed hanging out with my two aunts at the American Legion hall where the party was being held.

As one might expect, the American Legion hall in Mtn. Home is not a particulary fancy building. It dates probably back to the 70s or possibly earlier and hasn't been updated since then. For ambiance, there is 30 years accumulated cigarette smell, low ceilings and poor lighting. It made it very difficult to get good pictures, especially for an amatuer photographer like me. I did my best but the photos were either too dark, people's faces too shiny or green or the photos were blurry.

It was a very simple affair with mostly family, various relatives outside of direct family and people from Mtn. Home. There was a country/folk/rockabilly/gospel singer on accoustic guitar (too loud as most people complained but grandma thought he was great). My family, meaning dad's descendents, probably accounted for half the people there. Five of the eight siblings with some of their kids and grandkids were there. Everyone from my family stayed until about 5:30. We the Chandlers were the last to leave when dad left. We then drove the four hours back to Pendleton, stayed the night and drove the other four hours back this morning.

Now why would we do such a crazy thing? I guess it was so my boys could do the two-step and the swing with their great-aunts Boots and Deanna. So that I could see relatives that I haven't seen in 20 years or more, many of whom I would not recognized if I met them on the street. So that I could hear over and over again from those same Aunts, my Grandma and most importantly my dad, how happy they were that I came. So that my children could meet a Great Grandmother that they have never met before (Tucker is the only one who has met her and the last time was when he was just a baby). So we could pay tribute to a woman who has lived a long, somewhat cantankerous (okay really cantankerous) and amazing life.

I don't know my Grandma Vaden as well as I should. We were never particularly close. I think I like to place most of the blame for that on her end (and she deserves alot of it) but I think it works both ways. I don't know that she was every very comfortable with our family and we with her. Who knows everything she had to go through in keeping my dad at a time when having a baby out of wedlock was so very frowned upon? There is so much of her life that is a mystery that she would never divulge and now never will. I don't know all of what makes/made her the way she is. I guess I should have tried harder to find out.

No one is certain how much of her birthday party Grandma will remember. She seemed pretty lucid but who knows. What I do know is that my boys will probably remember it for a long time. They will remember that mom made them go on a crazy drive for a visit that lasted roughly 3 hours. They will remember being kissed, sometimes more than once, by strangers who mom insisted were family. (The Vaden clan are a kissing kind of family). They will remember dancing with their great aunts, eating pickled beets for the first time (Spencer, and he didn't like them) and most importatly, I hope they will remember that family IS the most important thing there is and sometimes we do crazy things for them.