KRA

She Knows

Posted on December 8, 2011 Written by Tonya

Bound, determined and ready to deck the halls for the holidays this year, I dug out our Christmas decorations just after Thanksgiving; two enormous plastic containers buried under a box of clothes Lucas has outgrown, two boxes of books and a duffel bag full of tools.

It has been four years since we’ve decorated our home for the holidays. You can read why here (!).

As I carefully unwrapped each ornament, it was like seeing long lost friends for the first time in far too long. My mind flooded back to the time and place I had been given or purchased the ornament and my heart smiled; a small wooden Pinocchio from our trip to Florence, several miniature Eiffel Towers, a porcelain rocking horse and my alma mater mascot.

I laid all the decorations out on the guest bed and put a stack of flattened tissue paper back inside one of the containers. In doing so, I found a plastic bag containing a beautiful holiday table cloth my mother had given me. I pulled the table cloth out of the bag, shook in out and in the folds discovered something that had been missing for almost 10 years: a stocking handmade by my grandmother when I was six months old.

I swore my mom had it packed away with her holiday treasures and she was adamant I had it in mine.

All this time, she was right.

I wanted so badly to pick up the phone in that moment and call her and tell her I had found it.

My mother died four years ago so that’s a phone call I’ll never be able to make. Somehow though, I think she knows. She has always known.

We put up our tree last weekend and hung the stocking from the fireplace mantle with care.

This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop Prompt 1.) Have you decorated your Christmas tree? Share a favorite Christmas ornament.

Natalie (Mommy of a Monster) and I want to see your children’s photos with Santa , so link up to our Santa Photos 2011. There are some awesome prizes to win!

Plastic

Posted on November 9, 2011 Written by Tonya

I applied for and received my first credit card in 1994. I was 22 and a Junior in college. I was given a $400 credit limit to shop to my heart’s content at Victoria’s Secret [insert eye roll here] and I thought I was hot shit!

I didn’t know a thing about credit.

All I knew was I loved the idea of buying now and somehow paying later. I had a part-time job at Pier One Imports. I figured I would figure it out.

Of course, one credit card led to another and then another…

Once you were “in” with the Express/Limited family, all sorts of retailers welcomed you with credit lines. Department store credit cards soon followed and at one point, I had them all; Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom’s, Neiman Marcus, etc. Many stores I didn’t even shop at.

Soon I had a wallet full of shiny plastic cards.

I am ashamed to admit that after opening one of the statements (also known as a BILL, I came to find out), my curious father paid off my plastic addiction. Well, first he had a fit and screamed and yelled and then he paid my off all of credit cards.

All the cards were promptly cut up in a ceremony sitting around our kitchen table. There was more yelling, many tears and relief.

None of the balances ever amounted to much, $80 here, $115 there, but my little part-time job wasn’t cutting it and it was time for me to face reality. In total, my parents paid off almost $1500. I was ashamed and vowed I would never let that happen again.

After that, I got smart (or so I thought) and used only one very special Visa card, which I proceeded to rack up a balance WAY more than $1500. I was not going to let my parents bail me out this time.

Although, they did but I don’t think they ever knew it.

When I graduated from college, my parents gave me enough money to live on for one year as a graduation gift. This included rent, utilities and car maintenance (gas and insurance). The check was written to me and I promptly turned around and paid Visa off in full! I was out of debt and also jobless.

Needless to say, I took the first $23,000/year position offered to me and never looked back.

I’ve always struggled with credit cards but I’ve never let myself get into debt again like those early years. I worked hard to stick to a budget and live with in my means but that always meant paycheck to paycheck for me.

Long story short, I’ve never been good with money, I suck at math and while I’m not a big shopper, I’m also not a big saver.

My husband and I sit down several times a year and review our spending, where we’re at financially and what our goals are. I am BEYOND grateful, completely relieved and much happier that he handles all of the bills and budget and anything and everything else pertaining to money in our home.

It’s just better this way.

This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop, Prompt 2.) One good reason why you are not in charge of your family’s finances.

Since You’ve Been Gone

Posted on November 8, 2011 Written by Tonya

My Letters For You guest this week is my sister Leah, who also blogs at L.A. ‘n’ L.A.

Our mother would have celebrated her 62nd birthday this week and here is a letter to our parents.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I miss you both every day. There’s nothing in life that I want more right now then to see the two of you. A couple weeks ago was the fourth anniversary of your deaths. It frightens me how long you’ve really been gone. You’ve been gone for 1,486 days of my life so far.

There’s so much that I want to tell you. There’s so much that you have missed.

Ultimately, I believe that your deaths changed me. I’ve grown up since you died. I guess I had no choice. I honestly don’t think that I’m your “Little Leah” anymore.

About two years after you died, I moved to Los Angeles. It was time for a change and as you know, I had wanted to move here for a long time. Something else pushed me into moving and that was that Tonya had a baby! That’s right, your oldest daughter has a beautiful baby boy who I cherish more than anything in this world. He brought me back to life after you died.

Lucas is his name and he has your eyes, Daddy. I take so much pride in being his aunt and I do my best to make sure he knows how much he is loved. Tonya and I talk to him about you both all the time and he recognizes your faces in pictures. At 2 years old, there is no one that can make me smile quite like Lucas. There is no doubt in my mind that you would have made excellent grandparents and I’m sorry that you didn’t get that opportunity.

It’s still crazy to me that my big sister is a mother. You would be so proud of her. She’s amazing. Tonya manages to not only be my key support system, but also the most incredible mom. She is so patient and loving. It’s unfair that you are not here to witness her shine in this role. I think that it would have rejuvenated your relationship with her, mom. I really do.

Without you both here guiding and supporting me through life’s ups and downs, I have leaned on Tonya at times of need. I do my best to listen to her and trust her advice. Of course we aren’t perfect and we still bicker from time to time but I do think that we are becoming better sisters and better friends all the time. There is no one that I would have rather had at my side when you died. I like to think that we get each other through the bad moments.

Since moving to L.A., I have struggled to get a job in the music industry. After you died, the economy took a plunge and the music business has been weakened. Finally this past August, I landed a job at a small radio marketing company. I also nanny for a family and have even discovered a new calling in the photography world. I have made some incredible new friends and have even found many high school and college friends that live here in L.A. too. Simply put, I am happy with my life here and I’m so glad that I moved here. Through it all, each day, I strive to make you proud of me. I try so hard to be the daughter that you thought I was becoming. I often wonder if this is the life that you hoped that I would have at 27 years old.

Even after four years, I still catch myself questioning if you are both really gone. I look for signs of you everywhere. I can’t hear a Beatles song, eat a Snickers, walk by a Build-a-Bear store, drink a Diet Dr. Pepper or do so many other things without thinking of you two. I’m touched every time someone says that I remind them of you.

I’m still so angry at you, or rather the hot water heater in your house. I was robbed of so much time with you. It breaks my heart thinking that you won’t get to meet my future husband, be at my wedding or play with my children. These are just the big events. The little ones hurt just the same. I hear people talk about what awful relationships they have with their parents and how they aren’t close. I understand now that what we had was rare. I was very lucky to have such close relationships with you both. Of course, mom, you and I both know we had more. We were best friends too. I literally can’t breathe from sadness sometimes when I think of how much I miss you in my life.

I feel like an orphan. I don’t think that is going to ever go away. It’s a title that I’ve somehow gotten used to and I’m alright with that. If I had one more hour with you both, all I would tell you is that I love you more than words will ever be able to express. I am so eternally grateful for the life that you gave me. You are in my heart today, tomorrow and always.

Lovingly your daughter,
Leah

August 4, 2007, one of our last family photographs.

Death

Posted on October 24, 2011 Written by Tonya

People don’t like to discuss death.

In many circles, the topic of death and dying is one of those taboo subjects, right up there with religion and politics, however, when it comes to death, there is no debate. Death is final and it is going to happen to all of us.

Death is the great unknown and thinking about our mortality makes us uncomfortable.

Death presumably can never affect us in a good way.

Death represents loss; loss of a loved one, loss of everything that we know.

Death is equated with fear; fear of losing someone and fear of how it will happen to us when it’s our time.

Death is a mystery and makes us question the unimaginable:

Will I go quickly?

Will I be in pain?

Will I see a white light?

Will I have done and said everything I need to when my time is up?

What kind of legacy am I leaving behind?

Will I go to heaven?

Will I ever see my loved ones again?

Will anyone attend my funeral?

How will I be remembered?

Trust me, death is far more than Elisabeth Kübler- Ross’ Five Stages of Grief.

I am convinced that if we talked about death more, if it wasn’t such an off limits subject, it wouldn’t be so scary or hard to face.

Having lost my parents at such a young age, theirs (60 and 58 respectively) and mine (35) and serving as the executor of their estate, I implore you to think about your wishes after you die and discuss them with your loved ones.

Openly.

Candidly.

Luckily, my parents did have a Will, but it had been created 28 years before they died and there were a lot of blanks and unanswered questions. With the help of many people I trusted, their estate is now closed, but it took the better part of three years.

Imagine my shock when I discovered on my father’s last “To Do” list a line item that read: Update Will. He thought he’d have time to revise it.

I also encourage you to talk to your aging parents and/or grandparents about their Last Will and Testaments in addition to their material possessions.

When my sister and I cleaned out my parents home, we separated the things we wanted from the things to be donated and the things to be sold through an estate sale, and still filled a 4′ x 30′ dumpster to the very top with junk. 16 years of paper mostly. My parents it seems were pack rats.

Death is no fun, but it is inevitable and the sooner we stop tip toeing around it, the better.

The Hole In My Heart

Posted on October 14, 2011 Written by Tonya

October used to mean feeling Fall in the air and spying Halloween merchandise on every aisle at the supermarket and being greeted by big shinny round pumpkins with glowing smiles on my neighbors front porches.

October meant the nights were getting longer and the air a little cooler. Not quite flannel jammies time, but close.

Conversations about how to spend Thanksgiving begin and Christmas shopping lists are started in October.

Now October has a new meaning.

In particular October 15, but the days leading up to it and the days preceding are tough too.

October 15 used to have no significance to me at all, just another day on the calendar.

Now it marks the anniversary of my parents’ death.

Today they have been gone for four years. 1460 days. It’s hard to believe it has been that long.

I dread the anniversary the most; more than their birthdays, more than Christmas, more than Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or their anniversary. The day I was notified my parents had died was the worst day and every October 15, I relive it. And every year I think it’s going to be a little easier, and it’s not.

I’ll never forgot sitting in my friend Suzy’s kitchen two weeks after the memorial service and watching her eyes fill with tears as she talked about her own father’s passing as if it happened the day before. He had died 30 years earlier.

In some ways this was strangely comforting to me; knowing I wasn’t alone in my grieve for a lost loved one and in other ways it made me even sadder than I already was. I realized this wasn’t something I was going to “get over”, I realized that death is as permanent as grieve and I would have to learn to live with this emptiness, the loss and the hole that was now forever in my heart.

I would have to live with the sadness each and every October and all the days in between.

Catalina Island, July 2005

One good thing occurred on October 15, 2008 on the one year anniversary, I told my sister I was six weeks pregnant with Lucas.

She’s Crafty

Posted on October 11, 2011 Written by Tonya

What does the writer do when she can’t write? She gets crafty!

Expect that I am not crafty in the least bit, which is rather embarrassing to admit as the daughter of an elementary school teacher. Growing up our living room was always riddled with colored construction paper clippings, we saved toilet paper rolls for God’s knows what and I got roped into tracing letters for bulletin board displays all the time.

And yet, for no apparent reason, I found myself in Michael’s arts and crafts store today, where I spent the better part of an hour walking up and down the aisles filling an entire shopping cart. I bought all kinds of stuff I never thought would enter my home…. pipe cleaners, glitter glue and googly eyes.

I have been feeling like I should be doing more arts and crafts projects with Lucas at home and with the holidays approaching and my severe addiction to Pinterest, I have been running across so many cute ideas.

There are literally hundreds of things I’d like to try, but today we stuck with this simple little gem:

Okay, to be fair, I made it and Lucas made this (he’s only two, people), but he thoroughly enjoyed sampling the candy corn!

To make candy corn collage, you will need:

Card stock paper
Glue
White, orange and yellow tissue paper

Instructions:

Draw a large triangle on card stock and divide into three parts (use an actual piece of candy corn for inspiration).
Rip tissue paper into 1/2″ x 1/2″ square pieces and use eraser side of pencil to glue to triangle making the stripes of the candy corn.

We are turning our candy corn collages into greeting cards. Fun and easy, just not quite easy enough for two year olds.

For more candy corn craft ideas, visit Pinterest.

Adding To Our Family

Posted on October 5, 2011 Written by Tonya

The last time I owned a pet (other than a fish), I was 13. 32 years ago today (!) my family got a puppy.

The day we brought Licorice home, October 5, 1979.

Part Labrador, part Poodle and way before they were called Labradoodles, Licorice was black with a little patch of white fur on her chest. She was sweetest and smartest dog I’ve ever been around.

Running along the ocean was one of Licorice’s favorite activities and we had to spell the word beach or she would go bonkers.

Despite sleeping at the foot of my bed, to be fair Licorice was my mother’s dog. We had her for six years and when we moved, we gave her to some friends that lived down the street.

My mother and Licorice, circa 1982

It’s time for another dog.

My husband STRONGLY disagrees.

ARGUMENTS FOR GETTING A DOG:

We’ve been wanting to add to our family. A pet would be a perfect addition teaching Lucas responsibility and giving him a wonderful life long playmate.
We have a large backyard with plenty of room for a pooch to roam.
I don’t think a more unconditional love exists than the one between a dog and it’s owner. Even when you’re feeling (and acting) miserable, they still love you.
Lucas really like dogs, although to be honest (much to my chagrin), he seems like more of a cat person. WE WILL NOT BE OWNING A CAT!! EVER.
I love to walk and vow to be in charge of this daily (and nightly) activity.
Extra security… for when my husband travels.
Opportunity to give a dog a second chance by adopting or saving a pound puppy.
Who could resist these precious faces?

Image courtesy of Pinterest. Click image for source.

Image courtesy of Snowesti. Click image for source.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST GETTING A DOG:

Discovering my favorite shoes chewed to smithereens.
We can’t even potty train our son, how would we ever potty train an animal?
No more spontaneous (or the other variety) trips – kenneling is expensive.
Vet care, food, toys, bedding, treats, etc. are also expensive.
Training. Ugh!
Shedding. Sigh.
Poop.
Saying good-bye is inevitable.

Okay, he may have won this argument… for now.

What do you think? Do you own a dog? What love and hate about pet ownership?

This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop, 1.) Share a disagreement you’re having with someone and let your readers be the judge!

The Summer Of ’69

Posted on September 26, 2011 Written by Tonya

Every now and then I have an undeniable and almost desperate need to be with family, members of my parents family that is.

Specifically my father’s family.

I want to talk about my father, ask questions and hear anecdotes about when he was a boy, a young man, how he was as a brother, an uncle and a friend.

I want to remember and hear about him being alive.

Last weekend, my sister and I took Lucas to visit our aunt and uncle (my father’s middle brother). We haven’t seen one another since Lucas was four months old.

Since my father died, seeing my uncle David will always be bittersweet. The resemblance to my father is uncanny and their mannerisms are so similar. I loved witnessing my uncle interact with Lucas. His tone and actions are so much like I imagine my father’s would be had he lived to be a grandparent.

One of the highlights of this trip, aside from being with family, was seeing the church my parents were married in 42 years ago on August 23, 1969.

Luckily, my sister carries this photo with her in her wallet. This awful reproduction was taken with my phone and the photo was just what we needed to confirm the exact side of the church my newlywed parents must have exited through, as there are many!

What dreams did they have have for themselves and their future together at the moment this photo was taken. Were they scared? Confident in their choice of life partners? Nervous about the journey that lie ahead, or simply deliriously happy and in love? I hope it was a combination of all four.

Family history is so important. It not only tells us who we are and where we come from, but it helps us remember when we are sad and it is one of the main reasons that I write, so that Lucas may know his (and me) better.

Family history is preserved through our children.

My Wedding Day

Posted on August 19, 2011 Written by Tonya

I started participating in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop over a year ago. My first entry was a post called Second Chances, in which I wrote about my wedding day.

I loved everything about that day at the time.

Now my memories are bittersweet because the day after my wedding was the last day I saw my parents alive.

Always up for a celebration, my parents thoroughly enjoyed my wedding day and were happy to see me happy. It was a day full of toasts and laughter, hugs and tears of joy. There was good conversation and sunshine. Todd and I were surrounded by all the people we love most in the world.

Given there were only 27 guests in attendance and we got married at our home, the photographer we hired was a sweaty annoying mess, darting from here to there desperate for subject matter.

I suppose I can’t really blame him and in fact, today I’m grateful to him for capturing so many beautiful shots of my mom and dad.

Candid, non-posed shots that I will treasure always.

And then there are these:

Linking up with Natalie’s Down the Aisle.

Even though she only asked for our favorite photo – singular, I hope you understand why I couldn’t pick just one.

Hand Me Downs

Posted on August 16, 2011 Written by Tonya

“Lucas, what would you like for lunch?”

“Mac ‘n’ cheese, please!”

“Okay, do you want to pick out a bowl?”

My mother attended West Texas State University in Canyon, Texas. Her best friend and roommate was named Brenda. My mother remarked more than once that Brenda’s sole purpose for attending college was to find a husband.

It was a different time in the early sixties.

My mother told me how Brenda would never go anywhere without full make-up on because as she would say, you just never know.

This drove my mother crazy.

I believe my mother had aspirations of working for the United Nations as a French translator. As it turned out she ended up getting married in college too.

Brenda actually went on at least one date with my father before my mother started dating him. She said that she knew from the moment she met him, that he was the man she’d marry. I love that.

I met Brenda on several occasions and she was lovely. She did marry while in college. Twice that I know of. She had three children. Her eldest was two years older than me, a boy. I got all of his hand me downs.

This meant I wore a lot of blue and red. I didn’t know the difference and my parents were struggling to make ends meet so they were grateful for the clothes.

My childhood room was decorated in blue and red as well and I had a lot of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.

Back in the 70’s, cartoon/television characters weren’t plastered all over everything like they are today, so the bowl and cup set I had with Raggedy Ann and Andy’s likeness were special, as were the Mickey Mouse spoon and fork.

My mother didn’t make a point of giving these to me, I simply found them one day in our kitchen long after I had outgrown them and decided to keep them. At the time, I wasn’t sure why.

Now I do.

I don’t have any of my old clothes that I wore as a toddler and certainly none of the hand me downs from Brenda’s son. I do have a few well loved, stuffing-coming-out-of-their-heads stuffed animals and baby dolls with terrible haircuts and an old Barbie case filled with Barbies and accessories, but none of that would I share with Lucas, so I’m happy I saved these dishes and can hand them down to him.

Hearing “I want the Raggedy Ann and Andy bowl, Mommy.” is music to my ears.

She Knows

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