Today my memories are about our pool and all of the good times we have had in it.

It was here when we moved into our house almost 15 years ago.  So many good memories include our pool.  Our three children learned to swim in it.  They have had swimming competitions in it.  My husband has pretended to be a water monster in it, producing loads of giggles and belly laughs from my children!  My daughter and I have exercised in it.  We have had parties and lots of family and friends in it.  We’ve lounged by it and jumped in when we got too hot.  We’ve gone in it on hot nights.  We’ve gone in it on cool nights, when the water was warmer than the air.  My daughter and I created our first Stan & Floss Adventure using it.

Later, when it was falling apart, we found frogs and toads and snapping turtles in it.

We’ve roasted marshmallows in it.

My husband is now in the process of demolishing our pool.  I feel sad about it.  I feel like I’ll lose the memories.  I’m sad that we won’t create new ones with the pool.  It feels like one more step away from they joys of childhood.  Sigh.

Do you have any memories to share today?  Please leave a link in the comments!

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What are your memories this week? My one year subscription to Mr. Linky has ended, so please leave a link to your memory post or your memory photo in the comment section!

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It’s hard to believe that this is my 52nd Monday Memories post. One year of Monday Memories! My Monday Memories: The First! was a post about my mom and crochet. Looking back on this past year of Monday Memories brings lots of smiles to my face! I have enjoyed setting aside one day a week to specifically think about the past and to post about all kinds of things. Some have been from my younger days, some from when my children were younger, some were just about the recent past! One of my favorite parts of Monday Memories has been reading the memories that you have shared with me.

I will still post Monday Memories, but maybe not every week. So tell me, on this 52nd week of Monday Memories…what are your memories this week? Go ahead and leave a link to your blog post or photo in Mr. Linky! If you don’t have a blog, tell us about a memory in the comment section. I want to hear from everybody! (If Mr. Linky isn’t working, you can put your link in the comments section.) Please remember to:

• Leave a link to the specific blog post, not to your general blog address, to make it easier for people to find your memory post.
• Make sure your link works and that it goes to your specific memory post.
• Put a link back to here in your post so that your readers can come and read about everyone’s memories!
• Visit the other participants and please leave comments on their posts! We all love comments!
• Enjoy the party!

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From pregnancy and that first year, I remember

wondering…

if you would be a boy or girl ~ if you be born on your due date (nope, one day after) ~ if my milk was enough for you (yep, for six months it was all you got) ~ when you would sleep through the night (I need to look in your baby book, I don’t remember when you did this!)  ~ when you would finally sit up on your own (a little later than I expected) ~ what you would be like at seventeen

loving…

the feel of you in my arms ~ the smell of you ~ the way you stuck out your bottom lip when you were getting upset ~ carrying you with your little arms wrapped around me ~ that you loved books from when you were so tiny ~ the way you thought everything Bart (our dog) did was hilarious ~ that you were so filled with joy

Always

I am so proud and thankful that you are my son.  You will always be my lovebug.

What are your memories this week? Go ahead and leave a link to your blog post or photo in Mr. Linky! If you don’t have a blog, tell us about a memory in the comment section. I want to hear from everybody! (If Mr. Linky isn’t working, you can put your link in the comments section.) Please remember to:

• Leave a link to the specific blog post, not to your general blog address, to make it easier for people to find your memory post.
• Make sure your link works and that it goes to your specific memory post.
• Put a link back to here in your post so that your readers can come and read about everyone’s memories!
• Visit the other participants and please leave comments on their posts! We all love comments!
• Enjoy the party and come back next week for Monday Memories: The Fifty-second!

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Cheeks helping with homework!

This is a photo of Cheeks in February 2004. He was my daughter’s guinea pig. Today someone commented on a post that I wrote about him a long time ago and he’s been on my mind ever since. I think about him often and even though we had to have him euthanized in October 2008 I still can’t bring myself to take him out of our blog tagline. Before we got Cheeks I never would have believed that a little rodent could have such personality and would bring such joy to our lives! We still sometimes expect to see him there lounging in his cage when we walk into the kitchen. Also? He was the inspiration for all of those crochet guinea pigs!

What are your memories this week? Go ahead and leave a link to your blog post or photo in Mr. Linky! If you don’t have a blog, tell us about a memory in the comment section. I want to hear from everybody! (If Mr. Linky isn’t working, you can put your link in the comments section.) Please remember to:

• Leave a link to the specific blog post, not to your general blog address, to make it easier for people to find your memory post.
• Make sure your link works and that it goes to your specific memory post.
• Put a link back to here in your post so that your readers can come and read about everyone’s memories!
• Visit the other participants and please leave comments on their posts! We all love comments!
• Enjoy the party and come back next week for Monday Memories: The Fifty-first!

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Feb. 2003 - My now 12 year old's 100 Day Party in Kindergarten

Feb. 2004 - My now 14 year old girl

Feb. 2005 - My now almost 17 year old son and Cheeks the guinea pig

Feb. 2006 - 13 m&m's for my son's thirteenth birthday

Feb. 2007 - Timmy

Feb. 2008 - Ice

What are your memories this week?  Go ahead and leave a link to your blog post or photo in Mr. Linky!  If you don’t have a blog, tell us about a memory in the comment section.  I want to hear from everybody!  (If Mr. Linky  isn’t working, you can put your link in the comments section.)  Please remember to:

• Leave a link to the specific blog post, not to your general blog address, to make it easier for people to find your memory post.
• Make sure your link works and that it goes to your specific memory post.
• Put a link back to here in your post so that your readers can come and read about everyone’s memories!
• Visit the other participants and please leave comments on their posts!  We all love comments!
• Enjoy the party and come back next week for Monday Memories: The Fiftieth!

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July 2002

My oldest boy has been occupying my thoughts a lot lately.  Remembering him like this, when he was a nine year old boy.  When he loved Legos and Stephen Speilberg movies and going on vacation and spending time with his brother and sister and my husband and I.

Now his mind is on his studies, his friends, his guitar, his music, learning to drive, finding a summer job, college planning…he would rather be with friends than with his siblings and parents.

He will be seventeen in just a few weeks.  I love the changes in him and they make me sad, too.  I’m so glad I’m his mom.  I never had a clue what a wonderful, scary, joyful, sad, fantastic job being a mom was going to be!  I am so thankful that I am finding out.

What are your memories this week?  Go ahead and leave a link to your blog post or photo in Mr. Linky!  If you don’t have a blog, tell us about a memory in the comment section.  I want to hear from everybody!  (If Mr. Linky  isn’t working, you can put your link in the comments section.)  Please remember to:

• Leave a link to the specific blog post, not to your general blog address, to make it easier for people to find your memory post.
• Make sure your link works and that it goes to your specific memory post.
• Put a link back to here in your post so that your readers can come and read about everyone’s memories!
• Visit the other participants and please leave comments on their posts!  We all love comments!
• Enjoy the party and come back next week for Monday Memories: The Forty-ninth!

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When he was one!

My first born child, my oldest boy, starts a driver education class in a couple of weeks.  Wow.  Wasn’t it just yesterday when he was driving his little plastic car around our yard?  Wasn’t it just last week when he would toddle over to us, reach his arms skyward and say, “Pick you up,” when he wanted to be held?  Didn’t he just learn to walk?

My boy will turn seventeen in a month from now.  He hasn’t been interested in learning to drive until very recently.  He hasn’t even been behind the wheel yet.  The weekends have either been too busy, or the weather has been bad.  Two weeks from now he will be in a car with an instructor and three other teens.  My mother’s prayer is this, “God, please keep these children safe.  Help the instructor teach them well.  Let them all take this responsibility seriously.  Keep the crazies that are in other cars away from them, please.”

What are your memories this week?  Go ahead and leave a link to your blog post or photo in Mr. Linky!  If you don’t have a blog, tell us about a memory in the comment section.  I want to hear from everybody!  (If Mr. Linky  isn’t working, you can put your link in the comments section.)  Please remember to:

• Leave a link to the specific blog post, not to your general blog address, to make it easier for people to find your memory post.
• Make sure your link works and that it goes to your specific memory post.
• Put a link back to here in your post so that your readers can come and read about everyone’s memories!
• Visit the other participants and please leave comments on their posts!  We all love comments!
• Enjoy the party and come back next week for Monday Memories: The Forty-eighth!

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• How nice the cool tile of the bathroom floor feels when you’ve got a stomach virus, or food poisoning, don’t know which.
• How good your bed feels when you finally are able to get off of the bathroom floor.
• How nice your dog Timmy’s cool nose feels on your hot feverish skin, once the chills are gone.
• How good watered down ginger ale tastes when your body can finally handle it.
• How good the couch feels when you can finally walk to the living room.
• How good the fresh air feels when you manage to walk around your yard after a week in the house.

Very, very good!

I would love to hear your memories this week.  Go ahead and leave a link to your blog post or photo in Mr. Linky!  If you don’t have a blog, tell us about a memory in the comment section.  I want to hear from everybody!  (If Mr. Linky  isn’t working, you can put your link in the comments section.)  Please remember to:

• Leave a link to the specific blog post, not to your general blog address, to make it easier for people to find your memory post.
• Make sure your link works and that it goes to your specific memory post.
• Put a link back to here in your post so that your readers can come and read about everyone’s memories!
• Visit the other participants and please leave comments on their posts!  We all love comments!
• Enjoy the party and come back next week for Monday Memories: The Forty-seventh!

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I got the recipe from my aunt many years ago.  She’s the aunt that was sitting next to me, wearing the “Sock it to me” sombrero, in the Tijuana, Mexico photo from last week’s Monday Memories.  She is suffering from Alzheimers now and has been for several years.  She doesn’t know who anyone is anymore, not even her husband.  I’m thankful that she shared this recipe with me when she was still able to.  I’ve been thinking about how she told me many years ago that she had a recipe for a special Christmas Eve olive and anchovy sauce that was in my uncle’s family and was passed down to her by her mother-in-law (my uncle’s mother.)  My aunt told me that she would not share it with anyone, not even my uncle’s family members.  I think that that is very sad because it is no longer possible for her to share it.

I think of my aunt every time I make these cookies and they are a reminder to me to share what I have and what I am…now, not later, not someday…now.

I would love to hear your memories this week.  Go ahead and leave a link to your blog post or photo in Mr. Linky!  If you don’t have a blog, tell us about a memory in the comment section.  I want to hear from everybody!  (If Mr. Linky  isn’t working, you can put your link in the comments section.)  Please remember to:

• Leave a link to the specific blog post, not to your general blog address, to make it easier for people to find your memory post.
• Make sure your link works and that it goes to your specific memory post.
• Put a link back to here in your post so that your readers can come and read about everyone’s memories!
• Visit the other participants and please leave comments on their posts!  We all love comments!
• Enjoy the party and come back next week for Monday Memories: The Forty-sixth!

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