I love this picture! It came in an email from Loopy friend Valerie in Canada, with the subject line: “Future Loopy Ewe Customers”. This is her two daughters and a neighbor friend, all knitting on the front porch. Isn’t it a great photo? I hope these three will have fond memories of summers and knitting when they grow up. (And lots of finished projects to show for it.) Special thanks to Valerie for forwarding the photo and giving permission for me to share it with all of you. 🙂
It’s time for our May blog contest! Since this is Memorial Day Weekend in the U.S., I’ve been thinking about memories a bit. Memories of people now gone, and memories of times past. If you could re-live one day/moment/event over, what would it be? (Well, it doesn’t have to be your ALL time favorite thing – just one thing you’d like to re-live or re-visit.) I would love to re-visit a day with each of my kids when they were about 3 years old. Knowing who they are at this point in their lives, I think it would be fun to go back and re-visit a typical day in their three year old life. (Three years old – that has to be one of the funnest ages in the world. Talking up a storm, personality in abundance, old enough to carry on discussions but young enough to still be hilarious with what they come up with!) I have totally enjoyed each stage/age as our kids have grown up, but I’d love to re-visit “three” with them. What about you? What event or day would you like to re-visit? Leave a comment and I’ll do the random generator thing next Friday (6/1) to pick a winner for the May Loopy Loot. (Edit: oops – I forgot I’d be out of town on June 1st, finding new fun stuff for all of us at the TNNA Market. Watch for the Loopy Loot winner on Monday, the 4th!)
Today’s recipe is one of my favorites from my mother-in-law. We have a big rhubarb plant that was transplanted from her house in Iowa to our house here in St. Louis several years ago. I picked the stalks and made this delicious dessert last week. I imagine you could substitute any fruit in place of the rhubarb, but be sure to adjust the sugar amounts along with it. This dessert has …. um …. a bit of sugar in it. To give you an overabundance of energy for a few minutes counteract some of the tartness of the rhubarb.
Rhubarb Dreams
Blend:
1 cup Flour, 5 Tbl. powdered sugar, 1/2 cup margarine
Press in bottom of 9×9 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.
Beat:
2 eggs, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 tsp. salt, 2 cups chopped rhubarb
Spoon over crust and bake another 35 minutes at 350 degrees.
You can also double this recipe and make it in a 9 x 13 pan.
Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.
We’re looking forward to a long weekend around here (Monday is a holiday) and you can bet that there will be knitting involved. I need to start my socks for my Sockapalooza Pal and I picked out one of the new colors from Scarlet Fleece for her, as it goes along with her preferred color suggestion. I’m still on a quest to find more knitting time each week. It’s one of my summer goals.
FYI – The vet visit was a regular checkup/yearly shot appointment this week, but Zoe and Casey want to thank all of you who inquired to make sure they were ok.
I’ll fill you in on more yarn news next week. I have two new yarn lines on order that are going to be fun, as well as new patterns and new accessories. And the TNNA – The National NeedleArts Association – Market is next weekend in Ohio, so I’ll be looking for more great lines and ideas that we all “need” need. WH thinks maybe I ought not to go. 🙂
Sheri sowhatwouldyouliketore-liveforfun?Leaveacommenttoenterthecontest!
Your question reminds me of one of my favorite films, “After Life”, directed by Koreeda Hirokazu. The film poses the same question to the characters, which is a mixture of fictional, scripted story and interviews of real people answering the question “What is the happiest moment/most significant memory in your life?” I shouldn’t say more about the film, because I encourage everyone to watch this quiet, beautiful film.
Anyway, as for my own memories, I came to the US from the Philippines when I was four and a half. I never experienced snow until I came here. A few days after I arrived, we had one of the deepest snowfalls in record. I remember standing in the park next to our house, the snow piled higher than me, and big, fat flakes falling from the sky. The snow was almost warm, fluffy and really surreal. What I’ve seen in books and pictures could not compare. I miss that sense of awe and amazement. As an adult, I don’t get that feeling anymore and I remember those times fondly. I still love snow, but nothing compares to that first experience of it.
I would like to re-live any moment in which I was helping someone else. From time to time, I participate on mission trips with my church and by myself. I have one planned in June of this year. I spent an entire summer in Indiana and Michigan, working at children’s camps. I spent a week on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. I spent a week in northeastern Nevada working with kids. I’ve done sports camps, made and distributed food boxes, and generally just loved folks who are in need. That’s the best day ever!
I would love to re-live the two weeks in March 2007 I spent traveling to Hong Kong and Macau with my younger sister. As we get older, it seems more difficult to spend extended amounts of time with each other, so this recent trip was extra-special.
There are lots of moments I would like to relive but I think I would go back to when the three kids were born and also a wonderful moment with my husband when we were first dating just standing in his living room. I think that is when I first realized he might love me.
I’d love to relive our wedding day, because everything went so quickly. Thinking back on it now, everything seems like a blur. Everyone tells us that it was one of their favorite weddings ever and I wish I had more memories of it.
Another day I’d like to relive is the first weekend DH visited me in California. We dated long distance for 9 months, I was living in CA and he was here in Ohio. The first weekend he flew out to visit me after we met was just incredible. I knew this was it…
I would have to pick the births of my 2 children. It is hard to remember what it felt like to hold them for the first time and how much joy I had in giving birth to 2 beautiful and healthy babies. I also wish at times I could go back to days when they were both little and I could just play with them. They are both wonderful adults now and are still a joy to be with….
There are many days I wish I could live again. Some for sad reasons (the day I had to leave university mid-semester, so I could say goodbye properly), some for noble ones (the day I found out that they were picking on my little brother at school, so I could stick up for him), and some just because I think they need fixing (the day I got married, so that my youngest brother and sister could have been there, or the day of the kindergarten field trip where I first got my fear of bridges), but others just because I was so happy and everything seemed perfect and nothing bad or horrible that had happened or would happen mattered.
I’m not the kind of person who finds it easy to move on from things and who can stop dwelling in the past just because she tells herself too, but I won’t pick days like those to talk about now. It really wouldn’t do any good. I wouldn’t be me if I could fix the sad things, the faults, or go back and make all my mistakes or oversights clean, and whole, and perfect. So I will pick a happy day.
When I first thought of having to pick something I immediately thought of the sad days, the days I thought needed fixing, and when I tried to search for the days when I was happiest I had a hard time coming up with any. I don’t mean that I’m never happy, just that nothing stood out as so wonderful, so perfect, that I’d want to do it again just for its happiness alone. Even my wedding day, as I’ve just mentioned, wasn’t as happy as I had hoped. But I did think of two days I will tell both of them, but if I had to choose one, it would be the second.
The first one was the day I first met my husband, Evil Andy. We met on the internet and started talking in September of 2002 and he flew out from England to visit me the week before Christmas in the same year. It was an amazing week. He proposed to me while we were at dinner that same week at the Space Needle restaurant. But the first day was the best. That first day was just so beautiful. A day of many special firsts for us. I was so nervous that maybe I wouldn’t like him as much in person as I did on the phone, or online, or that he would think the same. But when I saw him I knew what I’d known all along. I knew that he really was the man I was meant to marry. I knew that he was the person I’d been waiting for. That first kiss is the single best, most romantic kiss I’ve ever been kissed. I finally found out what it was like to be dizzy, and blind, and deaf, and completely and utterly isolated and alone in the whole world except for that one special person and the kiss. Fireworks. Magic. I’ll never forget that as long as I live.
But the day that I would most like to live again, if I could, is a day that happened so long ago that it’s hazy. I can remember few details except that I was probably 5 or so and that it was Christmas or Boxing Day and we were home from visiting and it was dark outside. The Christmas tree was beaming from the corner and my mother was listening to her new tape of the original cast recording of Les Miserables. My younger brother and I were lying on the floor, inside our new red sleeping bags and shining our new Fisher Price flashlights around the room. I can’t remember much else. My younger sister must have been born by then. She must have been nearly two or three but I don’t remember her being there. All I remember was me, and my brother, and the music. This memory is so special for both me and my brother that even now we cry to hear that music and we love the music, the musical, and the book because of it. It’s my happiest memory. Back when things were simple and my family was happy and time passed slowly. It probably doesn’t sound like much but it’s so special to me.
And now that I think of it that day is so special and that memory such a happy one, that if I had to live it again I doubt it could measure up to what I remember of it now. Maybe I’d even find that the day wasn’t very happy at all, and only the evening was very special. No. Even thought it was my happiest memory I wouldn’t live it again. I couldn’t. I think that would somehow make it less special, less cherished. Even if it turned out perfect I’m happier remembering it over and over than I think I would be living it again.
No. If I had to choose I’d choose the day I first met my husband. A beautiful day.
And such a long winded reply! Wow. You got me talking and remembering and the day has gone by and it’s time to leave work! Thanks for that! 🙂
If I could live one day over I think it would be one of the normal ones, but a good normal one. If I could go back and find one day where nothing catastrophically bad happened; where I just got to be around people I love, maybe if I could go back far enough that my Mom could spend another day with her Dad (my Grandpa). That would be a day to relive.
Sheri – If I could choose one day to go back to it would be one summer evening when I was a teen, that the whole family was together, healthy and happy at our vacation home for a long weekend. We were all laying on the lawn having laughed ourselves silly – a bon fire crackling at our feet and it was just dusk and we were all staring up at the stars and fireflys. My silly big brother was telling the entire story of the movie Jaws and we were just – together. To this day if someone in the family gets long winded, you’ll hear someone start the theme song … “duh-dunt. duh-dunt, duhdunt,duhdunt.” We really crack ourselves up.
That day was precious – we all remember it so fondly. Back then – you didn’t think of money, or taxes or war…we just listened to my brother and tell that story for three hours (he didn’t miss a detail. He’s a lawyer now).
If I could relive one moment again, it would be the last time I took my youngest daughter to see my parents house before my grandma passed away. When Abigail was born, grandma came to the hospital to see her and we took a picture of them together. 3 months later we were all together at my parents home for the last time. We didn’t know that we would lose grandma soon after that. After she was gone we realized that the picture in the hospital was the only one ever taken of my grandma with my little girl. So if I could relive it, I’d choose that last time we were together. And I’d take pictures this time.
Just about any day with my parents.
My Mom died 27 years ago when I was 21 and my Dad passed away six years ago.
They gave me the best gift parents can give a child – they loved each other and they loved me and I was very aware of both.
I would go back to last summer to our Alaska cruise and the day we spent in Glacier Bay sailing as near the glaciers as it was possible for that huge boat to get. I love the wide-open wildness of the ocean with mountain backdrops and clear blue water. It’s everything Houston’s not, and I ache to return.
The first full weekend I spent with my (now) husband — we lived 2000 miles apart when we met each other and spent a year and a half in a long distance relationship before we were finally able to be together full time. That first weekend alone together was so full of magic that it’s hard to remember the details, so I’d love to relive it.
Technically, I have two, but one is a general theme.
The first is when I was 8, when my parents and I went to Norway for the summer. We were visiting my paternal grandfather and my parents took off for the day with my Dad’s brother to visit other family. I had never had a whole day with Grandpa, and we had a great time. He’s was about 92 at that point, but still very active. He took his daily “constitutional”, which was about a 1 1/2 hour walk. We spent the morning hiking in the woods, picking fresh raspberries and wild onions. I learned a lot about my Grandpa that day and about my Dad when he was little. When we got back to the house, we got some new potatoes from the root cellar, and Grandpa made pan fired potatoes with the wild onions. We had the raspberries with fresh cream for dessert. That was my first experience with foraging for food, eating raspberries and pan fried potatoes, which are still two of my favorite things to eat.
The other is spending time with my Dad. He passed away in 2002. We used to go to lunch together, just to catch up and talk about this, that and anything. Every Christmas we would have a shopping day together to pick out gifts for Mom. It wasn’t until after his death that I found out he always selected the gifts I was given. I always thought my Mom had done that, since I was her usual “shopping pal”. She said that he just knew what I would like most. I just wish I could have one more conversation with him. I really miss the sound of his voice.
I would go back to a fall weekend day in 2002 when my husband and I frequently went to a state park and hiked in the wilderness for hours. It was the most peaceful time of my life!
Any happy day with Tim. And a day with the Cal Band. (I get two, right? Afterall, you have two kids! 🙂 )
I would love to go back to the day I graduated from high school. My parents were both alive then. We had lots of family there that day. I was so happy and excited that day. My parents – especially my dad who died one year later – were so proud. I have had several graduations since then – advanced degrees – but none of them have meant as much to me as that one.
There are so many times that I have enjoyed in my life. My daughter got married almost four years ago and moved two hours away about two years ago. I would love to have her here all the time so we could get together for coffee and just be together without having to make a trip to see each other. She has become quite a good knitter and sometimes it is hard when we would like to share techniques together and we can’t. It’s hard to explain knitting over the phone! LOL!
As much as I’d like to say I’d relive my wedding day over, that day would be second in line for me.
The day I’d like to relive over is the last day I saw my grandmother before she died. It wasn’t particularly eventful, and certainly wasn’t a happy day. She was hospitalized after having broken her hip while standing up. My grandma, who was not yet 60, had survived various cancers for almost five years when this happened, despite having originally been given 5-6 months. I think I had begun to think she was invincible. So when she ended up in the hospital after breaking her hip, which had broken due to the cancer, I assumed I’d have another chance to see her since I didn’t think she would die. I remember visiting with her for about 20 minutes before she fell asleep. She was really out of it because of the drugs to ease the pain, but according to my grandpa and aunt, she was her most lucid when I visited. She had been waiting for years for me to get married (which was always funny to me, first, because I was only 27 when she died and second, because she was always urging me to follow my career aspirations), and I was finally engaged. I distinctly remember showing her my ring and seeing the broad smile on her face. We then had a piece of chocolate and she fell asleep. I left shortly after she fell asleep. She died a few weeks later and because I lived over eight hours away, I was unable to be there before she died.
If I had that day to relive over again, I’m not sure what I’d do differently, but I know I’d make sure to tell her how much she’s meant to me.
I’d like to relive a day with my parents and grandmother. Not any particular day, but one with them all alive and vital. I was any only child and I was very lucky to have three wonderful adults in my life. I’d love to sit on the front porch swing with my grandmother and just talk. She was always my advocate and spoiled me with attention not stuff. She didn’t knit, but she started my love of handwork. I’d pay more attention to the family stories that I heard so many times. My mother is 91 and has Alzheimer’s. It would be nice to see her at her best instead of at her worst. My father died in 1990 and I’d love to hear some of his awful puns. Just an ordinary day, but knowing enough to appreciate it.
My memories aren’t clear enough to choose a specific day, but I’d like to relive a day that we spent with my mom’s side of the family back when my great grandma was alive. I hear so many stories about her, and she was always fun to be around, but she died when I was young so I’ve forgotten a lot of things about her.
I would want to relive one day with my family – one day when we were all younger and all my siblings and I were still at home with my parents. Just an ordinary day where we were all happy and healthy and when the idea of growing up and not seeing each other every day seemed really far in the future.
I would relive any day when I was a kid and my dad took me for a long motorcycle ride. We live in Iowa, and I loved the way the rows of corn plants in the fields were so straight that they looked like they had been parted with a comb.
I misunderstood this at first, until I read the comments I was thinking of a day I’d like to go back and warn myself about, when my little brother was born. I’d tell my kid self that it’s not the baby’s fault that mommy & daddy are fighting, and don’t take it out on your brother after they split up.
Anyway, on to good things to re-live! I’d love to go back to a childhood weekend with my grandparents. Cooking up caramel popcorn balls from scratch with Grandpa, and Grandma letting me use her special milk bath that turned the water white and smelled like roses. I wonder what they’d think of me all grown up now, and wish they could get to know their great-grandchildren.
I’d like to relive yesterday……. I was sitting on my sister’s front porch looking out on the Blue Ridge Mountains and watching the birdies go in and out of their birdhouses, smelling the lovely spring flowers. In fact, I think I’ll relive it today since I have a couple of days left in my vacation!
I’d love to re-live our anniversary trip a couple of years ago when my husband and I visited the Grand Canyon and that area of the country for the first time. I loved seeing the grandeur and experiencing God’s creation in a different setting. The hot air balloon ride was tremendous! I’d love to re-live it all! Take me back there!
I know that it will seem like an obvious choice, but I’d like to re-live the day that my daughter was born. It is such a huge, momentous time, but there is so much going on that you really are caught up in the moment. I’d like to get back there and experience all the joy and relevance and awe that comes with bringing a new life into the world without all the worry and distraction that goes on at the same time. If I could go back, knowing that everything was fine with her and with me and that the discomfort is so minimal in the long-run, I think I could be more aware of the incredible moment that it really was.
If I had to relive one day, one moment in time, it would be my wedding day. I was way too nervous to really savor that special day. I would eat at my reception, talk with my love ones who are no longer here. I would stop and smell my flowers. I would be happier, and not so worried about all the little stuff that didn’t matter. I would be grateful to my parents who loved me so much, and paid for everything. I would love to relive the thrill of first love. I am still married to my hubby, and love him more today than I did on my wedding, that was over 27 years ago. I would have told the photographer we had enough pictures, because the best memories are in my heart.
Is it selfish to want to remember myself as a kid? I’d want to go back and “meet me” – I really have few memories of my early, early childhood. We’re all that way, right? Just checking.
I think I’ve always been similar to how I am as an adult, but to see it would be interesting. I’d be most interested in me between the ages of 3-5.
i’m not one to say i wish i could do something over, but if i were in a coma, and i were thinking about all my favorite times i would be watching myslef play with my grandpa, and i would be remembering all the good times me and my fiance have/had together.
If i could go back and fix one thing, i’d be watching what i spend better. i’d rather have money for things i really want, instead of guilt shopping.
I think I’d like to revisit my wedding day — and just relax and enjoy every moment! I tried not to stress out at the time, but I think about the things I did angst over (like I wouldn’t let my husband wear his comfy cowboy boots with his tux, so he graciously submitted and wore the dress shoes that came with the tuxedo — patent leather that pinched his feet. Sorry, hon. Now I think the cowboy boots would be awesome!
It was still fun, though.
Thanks for the rhubarb recipe!
(I typo’d thubarb — kinda like that word, I’ll have to figure out what it means!)
Easy peezy. Walking across the golden gate bridge with my cousin and then just hiking around the hills and getting to the top. We just stared and stared at the view for ages. Then we hiked back down, went into an amazing restaurant and ate our hearts out. I adore most of my memories in San Francisco.
If I had to pick just one day to relive, it would be any day with my dad. Just me and him. Maybe go fishing, maybe putter in his workshop, definitely play some cribbage. And talk, talk, talk, about any and everything. I sure do miss him.
I would relive the last time I saw my grandmother. It was right before my high school graduation. She began to feel ill on the walk to the field, so my dad went to take her back home. I was anxious to get in line and find my place and my friends, and scooted ahead without realizing that they were leaving. I left that night on a trip, and she died while I was gone. I wish so much that I could go back and tell her how much I looked up to her and how influential she was and still is in my life. She was an amazing, strong woman, and I left her without even a goodbye. Almost 20 years later, it still makes me sad.
I would love to re-live a day rock climbing, before I injured my wrist. Expecially if I could know what I know now. It would be a day in the New River Gorge in West Virginia, at Summersville Lake, surrounded by close and wonderful friends, doing something I absolutely loved. This lake has huge cliffs around it that you can climb up without a rope, and if you fall off, all you hit is clear cool water. It was a lovely day, with an entire summer of climbing stretched out in front of me… I would love to be right back there, doing it all over again.
I would love to relive the day my husband proposed. He was so funny – I KNEW he had the ring and I KNEW he wasn’t going to be able to wait. All day long (4th of July, 2002), I was wondering….is this it? Is this? The anticipation was just delicious. I was just giddy the whole day. He was, too. It was an unspoken game – the most fun one I’ve played, LOL. When he said “let’s take the Harley down to watch the fireworks,” I said, “yes, let’s…” And when he wanted to go for a ride afterwards, I also thought that was a wonderful idea. I knew. He proposed in the middle of a field, with fireworks in the distance, saying “You’ve always been my favorite passenger, and I want you to continue to be my passenger and partner in everything.”
Our 4th anniversary was yesterday, and while my second choice would be to relive my wedding day, the day he proposed is my first choice!
There are two I can think of… the first being the day I met one of my best friends, on an airplane back from Phoenix to Florida. We had both been bumped off flights the day before and ended up on this one together, sweaty, unshowered, disgusting, but started talking in the terminal and on a lark I asked the person next to me to switch seats with him. We chattered the whole four-hour flight back and have been thick as thieves ever since. Talk about luck!
The other being a day on my European travels last summer – I had met up with a neat group of Australian travellers in Croatia and the second day we were there, we hit up the market for fresh fruit, veggies, cheese, and bread, and spent the day at a totally isolated beach. No other people, no cell phones, nothing. As the sun set, gorgeous and red over the cliffs around this bay, they set up a makeshift cricket pitch with driftwood and a tennis ball and they taught me how to play. I’ve never in my life been so relaxed and happy as I was that day.
I guess I’d have a couple of choices.
I could pick just a random Friday when I was still in college living with 2 good friends. Every Friday night we’d have nice dinners and lots of company over for good food and games and movies. I really miss seeing those people.
Another choice would be the day Anna was born. I feel like it just flew by, and I didn’t really get to appreciate what was happening. Yes, I had an epidural, why do you ask? 🙂
I would go back to when my first baby was born. I was so exhausted that I somehow forgot to really cherish those first few months. i can’t even remember them very well; it was all through an exhausted haze. I wish that I knew then what I know now about time management (I get more done with three children now than I did with just the one!), among other things. Thankfully though it’s taught me to really *be* there for my other two in their first few days, weeks, months out of the womb.
Eeeek Sheri – I think I’m a day late. We were out of town with no computer access!
I’ll leave this comment/contest entry anyway but that’s okay if you can’t use it for the contest. If I could, I would re-live the day we were told thast our son (then 10 months old) was profoundly Deaf. Odd, that I would want to repeat such a startling moment. It’s just that now, 14 years later, I feel like I know so much more and feel much better equipped as a mom. I’d like a do-over of that day so I could handle it all with a little more grace:)
Thanks Sheri – looking forward to some Bart & Louise Zen String next week.