Family: Gareth

Gareth was next in line, and was almost a month late in being born. His mother was understandably worn out and more than ready to give birth – also very tired of the whole town asking her when that new baby was going to arrive.

One night she was putting the girls to bed when Tara said, “Momma, I sure can’t wait for that new baby to get here. “ Kelly agreed that she, too, could not wait. Then Tara said, “But you know – I sure will miss Laurel.” 

She thought she had to give up the old baby in order to get the new one!! Too funny…

Once the new baby finally did arrive, he was just as uniquely amazing as the first two were. He was very much a boy, and would ride his tricycle full speed into the side of the house, over and over again, simply because it was fun.

He “fell” out of a tree once (Tara may or may not have had a hand in that little incident) and broke his collar bone. One hour after he got home from the hospital, he was back up in the tree again.

I asked him, “Doesn’t that hurt?” and he looked at me as if that was the most ludicrous thing he’d ever heard, snorted a quick “no” at me, and went back to playing up in the tree.

Family: Laurel

Laurel was second born of the Pollock clan, and for some reason she came with a very distinct Southern Belle accent. I have no idea where that came from, but she held on to it for a couple years as I recall.

She would latch on to a word that she thought sounded interesting, and would repeat it a thousand times a day just for the joy of saying it.

Also, her mother decided that she would not have bangs – so had to somehow keep the hair out of her face until it got long enough on its own. She did this by creating a little pony tail right at her forehead which made the 2” of hair stick out like a Unicorn’s horn!

I can still picture her running around town with her pony tail on her forehead saying “Radish. Radish. Radish. Radish. Radish. Radish. Radish. Radish.” All with her cute little southern-belle accent.

Family: Tara

Tara is my oldest niece, and was born with the most amazing mind. I loved watching her grow up and discover the world, trying to figure things out and determine her place in the scheme of things.

You know how kids are always asking question: Why is the sky blue? How does an airplane stay up in the air? What makes a coke fizzy? How many bees live in that nest up there?

Each time she would ask me something like that, I would turn the table on her and ask, “Well, what do you think?” and she would always reply with some long complicated explanation that made perfect sense even to me. She was rarely ever correct, but her replies always sounded amazingly logical.

As most kids do, she had some difficulty pronouncing some letters as she learned the English language, and to this day I quote her often saying “Tometimes I do, and Tometimes I don’t.”

Family: a Series

I’ve been thinking about creating a post about my nieces and nephews for a long time now. I never had any kids of my own but was lucky enough to have siblings who provided me with 8 wonderful nieces & nephews, and I want to introduce them to the world. 

I originally thought to write just one post comprised of a brief paragraph about each one. Then I thought perhaps I should break it apart and do one for each family group. Now I’m leaning towards one post for each kid. There’s so much to say about each one, it’s only fair that I give them the room they deserve. But how do I organize the posts? Do I do it chronologically by age? Or do I do it by family?

You see my dilemma. Feel free to chime in and offer up some advice, if you feel so moved. Until then, however, I think I’m going to just dive in and start typing.

I believe I shall start with Tara!

Stay tuned...

Apples, Apples, Apples!

I got a text the other day from my sister Noel.

“Soooo. Apples may appear on your doorstep. Just sayin.”

I’m thinking a client of hers was a little over-generous! But she was right – apples DID appear on my doorstep. Thankfully only two boxes.

Ha! “Only” 

Just what does one DO with two boxes of apples, each one of which weighs at least 40 pounds?

Why, one makes Apples Sauce! And Apple Butter! And Apple Pie Filling!

We must have canned apples for three days solid… and we still lost about a quarter of the apples by not getting to them soon enough (they spoil right quickly, it seems).

Our pantry is now overstuffed with jars of apples.

It’s a happy thing.

Damn, I Did It AGAIN!!

Apparently I didn’t learn the first time: I had to go and do it again not two weeks later!

This time it was potentially a lot worse, too. I was driving to work this morning and had just passed the last Eagle River exit when I happened to glance down and actually look at my gas gauge. It was dangerously low; like just this side of empty.

Immediately panic set in: I still had at least 20 miles to go before the next gas station, and I was absolutely positive I wouldn’t make it. I kept going through all the possible ways to handle the situation: who should I call? Should I attempt to walk to a nearby station (in the dark and in the rain)? Should I just sit there and wait for “somebody” to rescue me?

Mind you: my “go-to” rescuer is off hunting out beyond Fairbanks for the next 5 days - so he’s not an option.

And two years ago, I would have called my big brother – but that’s no longer an option, either.

By the time I managed to coast in to the first gas station I came to on Muldoon I was literally shaking, I was so upset with myself. The only thing that helped a little bit was knowing that last time I had made it 387 miles, and I only had 380 miles on the odometer this time.

I totally blame the move to Palmer on this new bad habit of mine. When I lived in Anchorage I knew exactly how far I could go on a single tank, and thought nothing of going for days with my “empty” light on. But now I’m in a whole new situation: I don’t know where all the gas stations are and have no idea how far apart my destinations are. Supposedly one day I will learn all that and will once again be unconcerned about trivial things like gas gauges – but for now I really need to learn to pay more attention!