Category: Family

Old Photos

/ Paul / Leave a comment

I was at my mother’s house yesterday cleaning out old boxes of photos when I ran across several photos I thought were cool. She also gave me several photo albums of old relatives that are no longer alive. We sat at the kitchen table and went through a big box of photos. We looked at every photo in the box. From time to time she would stop and tell me about who was in the photo or what was going on when the photo was taken. Of course I didn’t know any of the people in the photos. She said at one point that she’s the oldest living person on her father’s side of the family. That didn’t scare me. Seeing relative after relative in the photos with captions saying their ages in their 90’s, I’m sure my mother has many years left in her life.

I found a series of photos of guys together. My mother had no idea who they were or why she had photos of them. I’m not sure how old these guys are or what their relationships are but I found the poses to be interesting. Might any of them be gay? Maybe not. Just interesting to see guys in poses like this in the very early 1950’s. My mother said all of these were probably taken in 1951 or 1952.


Here is a picture of my mother at one of her showers before she got married. The photo is dated October 9, 1958. The caption says “Shower-Office Group”. It’s amazing how things have changed. In this photo all the women are drinking and smoking. Were they are work at the time? Probably not. It looks like someone’s house. My mother is in the middle opening the gift.


Here is a picture of my father. The photo was taken in 1960. Maybe he was in his bohemian phase. The hat would suggest so. The funky curtains must have really been in style.


I’ve got tons of photos of my parents taken in the 50’s and 60’s. They are all pretty wild like this. I’ll hang on to them for awhile I’m sure. I only scanned the photos you see here but I think this summer I will scan many more and create some kind of visual family tree.

Odds and Ends

/ Paul / Leave a comment

Today I got up early. I did laundry, cleaned my house a bit, showered, ate breakfast, and got dressed. By 11:00 AM I was off to the Apple store. I was hoping to buy the SightLight. It’s the light that goes around the iSight to provide the correct amount of light needed. But alas, the Apple store didn’t have it. The lady said it was only available on the web site at this time. I’ll have to order from there then. I wanted to create another video blog entry but have decided I will wait until I have the correct lighting. I think my last one lacked the appropriate lighting.

So instead of creating another video blog entry, I played with iMovie. I took many of the pictures I’ve taken of Shawn and put them together into a little movie. I added the Ken Burns effect, added music, and a few simple titles. I talked with Shawn on the phone today and told him about it. I told him not to think I’m obsessed with him. I was just playing around with the features of iMovie. He said he’s sure he’ll hate the pictures when he sees them. Sorry Shawn. We had a great phone call. I always enjoy catching up with Shawn. Anyway, creating the movie only took a few minutes.

My twin brother, George, is in town for a few days. He lives in Columbus, Ohio. He came to my place this afternoon to visit and catch up. I was showing him my relatively new digital camera. I took a few pictures of him. You can see them below. He warned me that if I post these pictures, he’ll sue. I’ll take my chances. As you can see from the pics, my brother is quite a funny guy. He was being extremely silly. And hey, do we look like twins at all? Probably not. We are fraternal twins. He’s much taller, and bigger then I am. It was good to catch up with him this afternoon. I’ll probably get to see him one more time before he leaves town.


While my brother George was here visiting, my phone rang for only the second time this weekend. I checked the caller ID and saw that it was Brad. I haven’t talked to him for more then a week. I was a little shocked to hear from him. I answered it. He said hello and asked if I wanted to go grab some dinner. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go. My brother was still here visiting. So I told Brad I couldn’t. He said we’ll do it another time. I feel so bad. After I was writing about him in another entry and saying how he hasn’t gotten in touch with me and when he does, I’m not free. I hope he doesn’t take that the wrong way.

Day With Mother

/ Paul / Leave a comment

Today I spent the day with my mother. I haven't spent that much time with her in a long time. I got to her house about 9:00 AM this morning. I went through the house with her talking about what she's going to get rid of and what she's going to keep and what furniture she needs to buy. She recently sold her house and bought a condo and has decided to get new bedroom furniture, dining room furniture, and living room furniture. We made plans to go furniture shopping today. She had picked out a handful of places to go. None of them were furniture stores I would buy anything from. But she's the one buying the furniture so I took her. We started out at The Room Store. Years ago when I first bought my condo and didn't have much money I bought a couch and a chair from this place. It's changed since then. The furniture is so tacky and cheap. We walked all through the place and my mother didn't find anything she cared for. As soon as we walked in the place we were accosted by several salesmen. This one asian guy actually followed us around the store. I finally stopped him and said he could stop following us because we aren't going to buy anything. He quickly apologized and went the other way. My mother started laughing. She couldn't believe I said that to him. But he was getting on my nerves and I knew we weren't going to buy anything. So we left that store.

Then we went to Marlo. Again, another cheap store. We walked around the whole store and she actually found a bedroom set that she liked. I didn't care of it at all. It's a medium oak colored set. I can't even describe the style. Kind of early American. It is made with some solid wood so it's not the worse choice she could have made. She currently has dark wood and hates dusting it so she's going with lighter wood this time. I tried to explain to her that light wood trend is over and it's back to darker, less ornate furniture. She didn't care. She knows what she likes and will probably buy it.

On the way home we stopped at Storehouse furniture. This is the place I bought all of my furniture. My mother doesn't want to spend nearly as much as I spent on mine. We made once complete circle of the store and she didn't find anything she liked. And when she looked at the prices she said this wasn't the store for her. After leaving Storehouse, she was disappointed with the whole furniture shopping outing. She was really hoping to find something she liked and order it today. I told her we could go again another day if she wanted. And that I'd take her back to Marlo to get the set she did like if she decided to buy it.

We were hungry by this time so we went to Subway for lunch. There was a really cute guy in line in front of us. So while my mother was talking about furniture, I was distracted with the eye candy. I don't think she picked up on it though. Anyway, after lunch I took her home. I decided to vacuum and wash my car while at her house. So I spent the next hour and a half cleaning my car. I haven't cleaned my car since last fall. It took awhile to get it all done. But now it looks really good. I probably won't get the chance to do that thorough of a cleaning for a long time. I'm glad I got it done.

I was so tired when I got home that I laid down and took a nap. When I woke up it was after 6:00 PM! I slept for almost 2 hours! I was supposed to call Shawn before he went out but by the time I woke up and remembered, it was too late. I will definitely call him tomorrow. I'm just going to relax tonight and watch TV.

Right Wing Eye and Stuff

/ Paul / Leave a comment

I was browsing blogs today and I ran across this link on DanBlog. He mentioned it was on another site. It is a very funny take off on the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy show on Bravo (which I happen to be watching as I type). It's on the site for The March For Women's Lives. I had heard about this march from a friend. (If YOU decide to come to DC to attend the march, you know you can stay with me.) Anyway, check out the funny cartoon and then think seriously about attending the march.

Even though it's spring break, I went to school to do some work. It's amazing how much work you can get done when no one is there and you don't have 25 kids biting at your ankles. I got there about 8:30 am and didn't leave until about 1:30 pm. I can't believe how much work I got done. I'm pretty set for the rest of the school year. There isn't any big projects that will need to be done between now and the end of the year.

When I got home for school I had a message from my mother. I called the voice mail and listened to the message. Turns out her bid for the condo she put in yesterday was accepted! She now has a place to live. In less then a week she has sold her house and bought a new place. She will leave closing with enough money to renovate the bathrooms and buy some furniture. She is very pleased and relieved. I am too! Now all we have to do is pack shit up and throw shit away. Shouldn't be a problem. I'm really good at both. We've got plenty of time so there's no hurry.

After talking to my mother on the phone, I went downstairs to the exercise room and did two miles on the treadmill and did the weights. I figured out on Sunday what weights I wanted to lift and how much weight to put on each exercise. The system we have in our exercise room is an old Universal System. I don't really care for it but it will work for me. It seemed like the weights were really heavy today for some reason. I used the same about of weight but damn, it was heavy! I was tired but pleased with myself for keeping this up for two days.

After the work out I was tired but I wanted to do some cleaning around my house. I started with my balcony door. It makes a terrible noise when it slides across the tracks. So I vacuumed it out really good and then got some soapy water and washed the tracks. It seems to be sliding better but I think this summer I'm going to have to call someone to fix it correctly. I think the rollers need to be replaced or something. After that I was feeling pretty good so I kept going. I preceded to vacuum and dust my whole house. I hate dusting but I did it anyway. So now my house is clean. I feel good. I'll be able to lay around and enjoy my spring break for the next few days. Yeah!

Odds and Ends

/ Paul / Leave a comment

I'm on spring break this week. I have lots of time to do many of the errands that need to get done when you have time. Since my mother is working on selling her house and buying a new house I decided to spend some time with her. I went to my mother's this morning to begin going through things she wants to get rid of before she moves. She put a contract on a condo this afternoon. I have my fingers crossed that they will accept it. The condo market is very hot right now. She may be out bid. Let's hope not. So she's already begun to get rid of things and think of who to give things to. She won't have the space in her new place for the amount of items she's collected over the 39 years she's lived in her house. We have a big family and my mother has 16 place settings of her good china. She knows she'll never use the full set again so she gave me 8 complete settings. She knows I won't get married and have a china pattern picked out. I happen to really like her pattern so I'm glad she gave me a complete set. Now I have some really nice dishes for the next time I have a dinner party. Of course I don't have real silverware to accompany the dishes. Maybe when she's ready to part with her silverware I'll get 8 settings of that too. She did however, give me 5 silver knifes and forks that belonged to my grandmother's set of silverware. I'm not sure why she didn't have a whole set. The entire set must have been split between my aunts when my grandmother died. Who knows. She also gave me lemonade pitcher that my grandmother used to use when we were kids and visited her in Indiana. I remembered the pitcher instantly when I saw it. It's funny the things you remember. I have plans to be back at my mother's house several times before she moves to help clean things out and pack things up. I'm such a good son.

Donut Jelly provides a fun link to the Create your own South Park Character. I don't watch South Park on a regular basis but I have watched it in the past and find it to be amusing. If I had to pick a character that I was most like I think I'd pick Kyle. I don't know why. I just think I'm like him. So anyway, I went to the site. I thought it might be some kind of site where you put in your personality traits and it would create a character based on you. When I got to the site I realized you simply pick the different elements you want to include in your character. I played around with it and created a few characters. Most of them looked like previously created South Park characters. So then I decided to try to make one that looked like me. What you see is what I created. Kinda fun if you have the time to play around. I'm on spring break so I have the time.

Happy 33rd birthday to Dogpoet. I check out his blog from time to time and enjoy reading it.

My arms and chest are hurting today because I decided to start lifting weights. I'm only doing my arms and chest. I don't want to be a big muscle guy but I would like my arms and chest to be a little bigger. We'll see how long I can keep this up. It hurts.