Hair Styles Through the Decades Ala Cheryl

In September of 1963, we had our second child, five and 1/2 years after Randy was born.  Randy had very blond hair and looked a lot like his dad.  I was hoping that our second child would be a girl with dark hair, and pretty like Don's mother.  Well, what do you know,  Cheryl, came exactly as we ordered.
Cheryl was such a sweet, sunny baby with lots of silky, dark hair.  She was always happy and had a smile on her face.  She will be fifty years old this next September, 2013 (where did that time go?) and she still looks young with that same happy smile on her face.  Her hair is still dark and silky, although she claims that she helps that darkness along a bit with some chemicals.  I don't know?
Looking back through our pictures I realize that you can pretty much keep track of decades of fashion by following Cheryl's hair styles.  She has always been pretty much a jeans and tailored shirt or T-shirt kind of girl.  She has always kept her wardrobe pretty simple.  But she always liked the newest kind of shoes, and the newest style hair cuts.
As you can see from the pictures at the top of the page, her parents really decided her hair styles for the first few years.  Her very first haircut happened while she was visiting her Grandma and Grandpa, Don's parents.
Grandma's beautician, Mavis lived across the street.  She came to Grandma's house and cut Cheryl's hair while Grandpa held Cheryl in his lap.  After that we usually took her to the beauty school for trims.

Jon loves to tease Cheryl about her first grade picture.  See her in her little plaid dress.  Jon says, "Look, her bangs are all crooked, she's missing her front teeth, and there is a piece of lint on her dress!"  Poor child, her mother must have been in a hurry that morning.  The next picture is maybe third grade.  As you can see this is the era of "The Brady Bunch", and Cheryl is wearing the Marcia Brady look.  And THEN we get into the decade of the Hippies!  Women were buying a kind of half wig called a "fall."  It was longer hair attached to a head band, and it made your hair look long and straight.  I bought one in a moment of madness, and I even wore it once or twice.  I must have lost my mind.  However, Cheryl loved it and wanted one of her own.  Of course her dad bought her one.  She wore it to school ONCE.  One of the boys in her class chased her all over the playground trying to pull it off.  No one chased me, but I think they laughed behind my back.

But Cheryl did persevere and let her hair grow until maybe the fourth grade.  So in the next pictures you see her with the authentic hippy hair.

Thankfully, 1976 arrived, and Dorothy Hamill won the figure skating gold medal at the Olympics.  You must remember adorable Dorothy with her all-American wholesomeness, and her wedge hair cut.  So Cheryl had to try the Wedge or Dorothy Hamill hair cut, and it was just perfect for her face and hair.

So she kept the wedge for quite awhile, and it just naturally grew into the teen-aged "feathered" look.  That is her hair kept getting longer and longer, and she feathered her bangs back from her face.  This lasted through high school until her senior year.  You know we are now into the 80's, the time of BIG HAIR!  So Cheryl went with the trend and started getting those long curly perms.  In fact, her brother, Rod, had some curly perms too.  But that is another story for another time.

The curly perms saw her through the rest of high school, into college, dating Jon, getting married, and even last until after Taylor was born.

But, as you can see, it wasn't long after having that busy little guy, Cheryl decided that it was time for a new short hairstyle.  What a good idea.  And she has pretty much kept some variation of that same short style every since.  

But there are some wonderful things that have never changed.  Cheryl is still the same sweet girl with the happy face and the beautiful smile.  She is full of love and has a beautiful heart.

Here is her latest school picture.  Yes, I may be 76 years old, but I still get a school picture from this child every year since she is a teacher.  And, since her birthday is in September, I still get to take her every September and buy her some school clothes!  She does make this mother happy!

Ashley's Doll House

Today we had a 21st birthday lunch for Ashley.  Her birthday isn't until January 16th, but Grandpa couldn't wait to give her the birthday present.  Grandpa and I have been making her very first doll house.  We have had a lot of fun.  Grandpa did all the major repairs and painting. I did the wall papering, carpeting, and
DECORATING!

I  want to live in this cute little house.  The only trouble is it has no stairs!  Those are left to the imagination.
That problem, and that the refrigerator door doesn't open.  Now that is a problem.

We only hope that Ashley loves her house as much as we love her.

A New Perspective

When a person reaches my age it seems that all your perspectives change.  When I was a young married wife with small children, I looked at the future as if the distances were astronomical and required a telescope.
And now looking back, the years have shortened so that no looking glass is needed.   The years past seem like such a short time.

I have been sorting all the photos of our children, and looking at them when they were babies and pre-schoolers.  I realized the other day that I never dreamed about all the things that those babies might accomplish in their lives - education, good jobs, world travel, families of their own.  They were just funny little babies with cute little faces and personalities.  They were such fun!

When I looked at Randy's pictures.  He is our oldest child, so of course there are hundreds of baby pictures of the first child.  He was a pretty funny baby.  From the moment he could react to us, he was a child of a myriad of facial expressions - most of them funny.  And from the moment he could talk, he loved to talk and tell stories.

Hmmm - as I look at Randy's pictures from baby to adult, I realize he is still pretty much that same way.
Let me present some pictures to prove my point.

Here is Randy, about 18 months old, telling a story with all his funny expressions.

Grown up Randy with the same expressions, telling a different story (I think).  Although, he is probably
saying, "Why do you ask?"  This is his standard response when you ask him a question.

And now we see Randy digging in the dirt and trying to do some gardening.

Yep, he's still digging.

Randy loved the party games, often leading the game.

Different balloon, entertaining a different girl, still leading the game.

Styling the cool vest look.

.Uh Huh.

His first Christmas, wearing a bib, and loving the presents.

His I don't know which Christmas, still wearing the bib, and still loving the presents.  (Actually this was the Christmas before Avery was born and she is twenty.  As you can see, the not-yet-born Avery received presents even before she arrived.

Now here is baby Randy taking his first steps so that he can model his new suit.

And here is the grown-up Randy (well, I'm not so sure about that) modeling some kind of suit.  I'm fairly sure from the back drop that this is a photo from Abu Dhabi.  It is hanging in his office.  The firm where he works designed Ferrari World Theme Park in Abu Dhabi.  I don't know about the outfit he is wearing.  It must have some desert connection.  I'm sure Randy can explain this picture if he happens to read this blog.  That is if he is still speaking to his mother!

All of this is just to prove to all you young mothers out there, that all those fun things that you see in your babies may still be making appearances when those kids are all grown up.

And that is a good thing in Randy's case!

Creating Some Christmas Fun

This past week I have been busily involved in a craft project that has been a lot of fun.  Let me tell you what I have been up to.

Last spring I purchased this little hand made sunflower at the local Goodwill Store.  Don't you just love it?
It is made from a craft wooden spool, a cinnamon stick, some cotton fabric, and a button - so cute that I had to try to make one.

So this last week I decided to modify the sunflower project so that I could make some Christmas type flowers that I could use for small friendship gifts or party favors.  I like to have such a project every Christmas so that I can give these little thank you gifts to friends - fun enough to say "I love you, friend,"  but small enough not to be reciprocated.

So I used these materials to create my Christmas flower pots.

1 1/2  red polka dotted satin ribbon
Narrow green checked satin ribbon
Black drawing pencils
Old wooden spools of thread that I already had
Old white buttons
Christmas design scrapbooking paper to cover the spools

I gather-stitched the red ribbon to create the round flowers.  Then I glued on the white button in the center of each flower using Quick Grab glue.  I covered each spool top and bottom with round paper discs, and then a strip of scrapbooking paper around the cylinder.  I punched the hole in the paper on top.  I stitched a loop of green ribbon for the leaves.  When all this was finished I used the Quick Grab glue to glue the flower at the top of each pencil with the leaves glued right beneath.  Then I simply stuck each pencil lead point down into the spool flower pots.

Please notice that the pencil/flowers can still be pulled from their pots and used for writing. These can be used on a desk or by the your phone. Since this is true, I created note pads that can be used along side the Christmas pencil.  To create these I used the following materials:

Folded green card stock
Small white note pads
Rubber stamps (Gift box and Merry Christmas)
White ribbon

So the project is finished.  I have made 22 sets.  I hope my friends enjoy them.  And I hope that they make for very festive place settings at our next Christmas luncheon.

Remembering My Brother, Jack

Yesterday, December 3, 2012, my oldest and only remaining sibling, Jack, passed away in Greenbrae, California.

Jack Edward was born in Anderson, Indiana,  on May 14, 1927, the first child born to Mark and Gladys Green.  Jack would become big brother to four siblings:  Clyde, Dan, David, and Phyllis.

Being the only girl and the youngest in the family, and being nine years younger than Jack, I was always rather in awe of this older brother - my hero.  And while he always teased his brothers, he was  very kind and sweet with his little sister.

As tiny tots during the depression, Jack and Clyde along with Mom and Dad, lived with our Grandpa and Grandma Lininger.  Families had to do that to survive the depression.  Jack was always especially fond of both Grandma and Grandpa.  Jack and Grandpa Lininger were actually a lot alike.  Grandpa was very creative, mechanical, inventive, and an excellent craftsman.  Jack admired his skills, and had a lot of the same talents.

Jack graduated from Anderson High School in 1945, and was immediately drafted into the military right at the end of World War II.  He was sent to Germany, but never served in battle, as the war ended that summer when he was drafted.  After Jack finished his military service, he came home and immediately enrolled at Indiana University in Bloomington.  I was only nine years old when he left in 1945, and Jack never was to live at home again - only coming home at holiday times.

It was always fun when Jack and all the boys were home for the holidays.  Jack was always the great tease and kidded his brothers and our mother unmercifully.  Mother loved it when all the boys were home.  We all loved the laughter and fun.

After graduating from Indiana University where he was in the Kappa Sigma fraternity, and was editor of the yearbook, Jack married Dori and moved to Indianapolis.  Dori and Jack moved to Californina where Dori, a jazz pianist and vocalist, could pursue her career.  While they were married they lived in the San Francisco area and had three children: Richie, Karen, and Chris.

The marriage ended.  The children grew up.  Jack remained living in the bay area.  Richie works in the computer industry.  Karen, an artist, is the widow of author, David Foster Wallace.  And Chris works in the film industry as a cartoonist.

Jack was remarried to Stephanie, and they lived in Greenbrae, California.  Jack and Stephanie used their creative and craftsmanship skills to operate a home and furniture rehab business.

Stephanie has been a loyal and faithful wife to Jack, taking care of him through these last years of illness.
I feel very grateful to her for taking such good care of Jack as his health failed .  I am also grateful to the Nursing home facility that provided compassionate care during his long illness.  Thank you, Stephanie, we look forward to having you with us in Indiana whenever that is possible.

As I remember my brother, Jack, I remember that very handsome guy with a unique sense of humor who loved to tease everyone.  I remember a guy who was artistic and creative, a guy who loved cars and photography - a guy who loved a good laugh.  I imagine that he is somewhere having a good laugh on all of us because he beat us to a better place!

The Very Best Dog

We have a new Grand dog in our family.  Our daughter and son-in-law recently adopted a rescue dog.
She is a beautiful German Pointer named Lacey.  Her family thinks that she is the prettiest and best-behaved dog there ever was.  We have dog sat with Lacey and she is, indeed, a very special dog.

This last week I have been going through all our photos and organizing them into files.  I put all our photos of the dog you see above into our "Pets" file.  The pet you see in the above picture is the late and great pet named Scotty, who was undoubtedly the greatest dog in the world!  Lacey is very, very nice, but Scotty was the greatest.

He came to us as a puppy.  Don was then athletic director at Highland High School.  It was early spring and he was mowing the football field on a Saturday morning.  He later called home and said to me, "You'll never guess what is sitting under my desk and looking at me with these big brown eyes."  Thankfully, it being Saturday, I could rule out it being any sane human being.  Anyone sane wouldn't hang around school on a Saturday.  "Yes," he explained, "it is the cutest puppy I have ever seen.  I think I'll bring him home if it is all right.  He was either dropped off out here by someone, or has run away.  It isn't safe to leave him here.  He'll be  running out into the road."

I was not happy.  We had just recovered from our last puppy experiences.  We had just lost our not very bright bassett hound named Humphrey.  True, he was cute in a very wrinkly sort of way, but he wasn't very bright........in any kind of way;  He was a behavior-training drop-out.  He had suffered from a hip joint displacement, because he jumped out of the car (it was parked) with his leash on.  Then he sat down in front of a school bus.  We spent several hundred dollars nursing him through those injuries.  And, soon after he was recovered, he ran in front of a jeep and was killed. We had also suffered through de-fleaing and de-worming dear old Humprhey.  I wasn't ready for another dog!

I told Don he could bring the pup home until we found an owner for him, but we weren't going to have another dog.  The rest of the family did not like my refusal.  But I stood firm in my decision.  One of the coaches at Highland said he would like to have the puppy.  So, fine.  But part of our family (the kids) weren't being too friendly toward Mother.

About a month later, the coaches from Highland were making a weekend trip to some sporting event.  They asked if I would mind dog sitting the puppy while they were gone.  Well......... you can guess the rest.  One weekend with that sweet pup and I was a goner.  AND upon returning home from their trip, the coach said his apartment owners didn't want him to have a dog in his apartment. The rest is history.

We named our new pup Scotty, not because any part of him is Scotty dog breed, but after the school's mascot, the Highland Scots.  He seemed to know from the very first that he had to be a very good and friendly dog.  After all, Mom said she didn't want a puppy.  But Scotty proved from the very first that he was indeed a very good dog. He didn't bark much, he never had "accidents" in the house.  He just smiled at you, and liked you a lot.

If you look at the picture way at the top of this page, this shows Scot's reaction to anyone who asked him, ""Do you want to walk around the block?"  Immediately he head tilted and the ears were cocked.  Of course, you could get the same reaction if you said, "Do you want to rock around the clock?", or "Do you want to chalk around the stock?"  But he did love to take his walks.  I often took him on the nearly three mile path around Aqua Gardens along wth my neighbor, Evelyn.  He was still such a puppy on our first time around Aqua Gardens that his little paws hurt and he was so tired about half way round, I had to carry him the rest of the way.  Evelyn thought this very funny.  She laughed all the way home.

He also loved to go back to the football field.  There were farm fields all around the stadium.  After taking a few turns on the track, he would take off through the fields, leaping like a deer over any plant in his way.  Some times he got so carried away with this freedom that we had to wait a long time for him to return.  After one really long wait, we bought a cap pistol.  One shot with the caps, and he always flew back to the car.

Scotty loved everyone, especially all the kids who came to play in our yard.  He also liked all the neighborhood dogs.  He would happily run across the street, and wait in the driveway for the neighbor's dog to come out and play.  Cheryl's best friend, Cindy, had a dog named Scout.  Scout had a built-in clock and he knew exactly when it was time for the school bus to get home in the afternoon.  Scout would pick up

Scotty, and the two of them would go down to the bus stop to meet "their" kids.

As much as he loved walks, Scotty also loved to ride in the car.  And, just like his family, he believed that every car ride should include a stop for an ice cream.  One drive up ice cream store in Anderson had a "Scotty dish" on their menu.  He would quickly finish his dish in the back seat, then lean over the back of our seat and watch us eat our cones.  If you got too close to the end, he would tap you on the shoulder so you wouldn't forget to feed him the end of your cone.

He also loved to go to the lake with us.  He would sleep for most of the two-hour drive to the lake.  But he would always wake up about fifteen minutes before arriving at the lake.  Then he would hang his head over the front seat and get all excited watching for the lake.  He loved to get in the lake, ride on the pontoon, and  to roll in dead fish so that he smelled really bad!  He had his very own seat on the pontoon, in the back right beside Don.  If we had friends on the pontoon, and one of them sat in "His seat", Scotty would simply stand and stare at them until they found a new place to sit!

Scotty loved everyone, except maybe delivery men in uniform (what's up with that - it seems all dogs feel that way).  But Scotty especially loved his family.  Of course there was a very special bond between Scotty and Don because he accompanied Don on almost every trip in the car and on every walk.  And even after all the kids were grown and moved to their own homes, he loved to have them come visit.  Rod was always a favorite because he knew just the right spot to scratch Scotty's ears!

About a year after I retired, when Scotty was getting old and grey around the edges, he took sick one night while we were sleeping.  Don found him very ill and unable to stand one morning.  He immediately rushed him to our vet.  The doctor said that he didn't have long to live, so we had him put to sleep so that he wouldn't suffer.  Boy, what a void it leaves in  your lives when such a constant companion is gone. But I know that he must surely be in heaven where he is The Very Best Dog in Heaven, just like he was always the Very Best Dog on Earth!.

My love and thanks to son, Rod for the tutorial on photo scanning!  I love it.

Remembering the Summer of the Rose

Yesterday Don cut back our roses.  Yes, it is time, but I can't remember a summer when I have enjoyed the roses as much as this year.  I hate to see them go.

It has been a hard summer for most things green and growing - not to mention those things animate and growing.  Thankfully we have survived all the drought and sweltering temperatures, and have moved into my favorite season of the year.

But roses everywhere seemed to love the heat and the drought.  I always knew roses to be beautiful to look at, delightful to smell, and capable of speaking the language of love.  I just never knew that these dazzling flowers were such tough little cusses.

Most of our roses came to us as potted Mothers Day gifts from our kids in Cincinnati.  After enjoying them in the house, Don always plants them in the yard.  I have spoken before of our "surprise" flower garden.  We are just never sure what will decide to pop up and grow in any given year.  But that is the delight of such a garden.  And this year the roses outshone every other flower.  Where everything else struggled with heat and drought, these tough little cusses thrived and survived, and were more dazzling than ever.

It kind of makes me wish that I were still in my child-bearing years so I could have a daughter and name her Rose.  Hows that for a foolish wish?  Oh, but wait, maybe we could just change Cheryl's name to Rose.

After all she is pretty dazzling and perfect.  AND  she has often proven that she can thrive when things get tough.