We'll be the ones who are first to move away, well, again...not counting the years Deputy Dave served in the Air Force and we lived in Germany.
In a few days, we'll be having a large gathering at our house, probably the last one we'll ever have at this house...that's IF it sells rather quickly. If it doesn't sell, I guess we'll be here for more celebrations than we had imagined. However, the GOAL is to get this sucker sold.
On March 10th, we'll be holding my dad's birthday party here. I believe he'll be 66 years old; he's a youngin. We'll be using our long driveway to set out tables, chairs, some music and we'll be having a crawfish boil.
Of course, I'll cut some flowers from our garden to set out on a few tables during the party. It's always heavenly to have flowers grow in your garden for cuttings.
As we plan for this upcoming party for my father, I think about some other good times we've had at our house. Such as the time when David and his brothers were here to play poker...our family specialty.
Deputy Dave is the tallest of his brothers. They're all over six foot tall, but Deputy Dave always clears their heads as the tallest, no question about it. This seems to irk his oldest brother, on the far end in the brown collared shirt, that's Kevin and Deputy Dave's best fishing buddy. Kevin loves to stand on his tippy-toes for pictures so little brother has a harder time being the tallest.
Mark is in the middle, at over six foot tall, he was the brother who also had width. Deputy Dave had played basketball, Mark played football and Kevin was the swimmer. Each body type followed their natural abilities.
Of course, since Deputy Dave is the youngest of the three brothers, he's got to have a goofy moment. He's really a funny guy...his brothers keep trying to smile for the photos, but NOW they are REALLY smiling and I'm having a difficult time holding the camera still.
Howdy comes up to say, "Hey, I'm one of the guys too ---- I even have all my 'parts' to prove it."
After all silliness subsides, I get the great photo of the brothers that I had wanted to capture. I love my brother-in-laws, they are good men. These are men who know how to build just about anything and they all can cook as well. I love having lots of great cooks in our family...makes every family gathering definitely worth going to because you never know what will be served, but you DO know that it will be delicious.
And Mark's shirt gets the brothers' curiosity.
I love these guys.
Then, our poker playing family gets busy with losing our kids' college funds. Okay, it's not quite that dramatic, but we are playing with our change jar funds. The kids play video games, namely Rock Band.
The brothers play cards and their nephew, Jo-Jo and his wife, Christina joins in on the fun.
Meanwhile, my sister and brother-in-law enjoy playing Rock Band. Warren tries to help Shaye play the video-game-drums.
Later Kevin and his wife, Susan, are enjoying a few winning hands of poker. WOW, look at that HUGE winning pot of mostly pennies waiting to be scooped into someone's college fund jar.
Our niece Jessica gets on the drums and my sister belts out a few songs. My sister had been the Karaoke Queen throughout her college years. Go figure. She's a typical school counselor. Wild and crazy.
The young man there is Matthew, our nephew...Mark's son. He is taller than ALL of his uncles, I think. I guess I should pay attention to whether or not he's passed up Uncle David. And yes, the white floating orb is next to me...I always have those around me in pictures. From what people constantly tell me, I guess I should say, "Hi Mom!"
You know what they say about orbs in photos...Stefie and I seem to be the two people who always have them on us in photos. What can a person do but be light-hearted about it?
I'm definitely looking forward to our next gathering at our house for my dad's birthday and for our farewell party at our house. I guess it's a combo-party.
I might make some shrimp etoufee as well, especially since Deputy Dave has kind of veered away from crawfish the past few years. But, we're basically making those for my dad...he loves them and it will be his birthday. He'll be a lucky birthday boy who will certainly enjoy socializing and eating to his heart's content at his party.
For us, we'll enjoy the gathering and seeing everyone have a great time for the last time at our beautiful house. This place has been good to us. However, I am looking forward to not having all this extra space to clean, maintain, cool, heat, and furnish. I'll definitely have less furnishing to dust and polish once we move.
And for my regular readers, you know that beautiful master bedroom suit we have? Well, I'm selling it. I'll never again make the mistake of buying furniture with carved details because those beautiful little details are a massive pain in the rear to keep clean. Give me a solid surface without grooves, without carvings, without maddening details to dust with Q-Tips. Forget that kid of cleaning! Never again!
Purchasing this bedroom suit had been so thrilling for me. Throughout our entire marriage, we been using hand-me-down furniture or creating a mish-mash of a room full of non-matching furniture for our bedroom "suit." We each had different pieces of furniture for our end tables, no head-board and little antique dressers to hold our folded clothes. I was about 40 years old when I finally got my VERY FIRST bedroom suit when we purchased this ornate set. I felt as if I were on Cloud-Nine.
Growing up, I never had a bedroom suit. Mostly, I had a mattress on the floor. My parents weren't exactly into being concerned about furnishing. Have I mentioned that my parents were hippies?
Anyway, I wish I would have left that ornate, beautiful bedroom set in the store and selected something else that was plain and with simple lines to make dusting less time-consuming. I'm all about trying to make my house easier to maintain. Our country cabin in the woods will hopefully be built with great organizational elements and the floors and furnishings should be easy to maintain. Heck, we might be back to living with mismatched furnishings in the master bedroom. I kind of like that look, after all. Also, Deputy Dave and I do not want a king-sized bed any longer. We're sleeping upstairs on a Queen set and we love it. No more kings in this house.
So, I'm selling our beautiful Master Bedroom furniture set. It's gotta go.
No matter what, our lives are on the path toward great change.
But, I think I might miss this house, a little. However, even in a smaller house, you can indeed be onto bigger and better things in life!
4 comments:
We love our king bed. ;)
Maybe because it's only a frame and mattress set.
And you could take cuttings of your roses to root.
And take with you, if you wanted to. :)
Have a great day!
Your last family gathering to be sounds like so much fun. Wishing you father a very special birthday. The roses are beautiful. I would have to dig up the rose bush my son & granddaughter gave me one year for my birthday. In your last comment I noticed cuttings to start. You would still have offspring of the beauties. Blessings!
Lara
Sounds like everyone had a good time. We have a poker night here with my husbands work buddies about every two months. Its so much fun. I notice your dog. He or she looks just like my dog Tanna. Can you transplant your roses to your new home. And just buy ones to replace them.
Linda --- We have always loved our King-sized bedding, especially while the kids were growing up, but we have decided to not have the bed take up so much space and we are actually enjoying being closer to each other, even though I am one to toss and turn. I think we're going to look for one of those mattresses that doesn't move when the other person is flipping over 100 times through-out the night. As for the roses, I think we are going to do cuttings. Have never done it before, so it will be fun.
Lara --- the most terrible part of leaving a house, for me, is to leave the plants that meant so much. I'm weird. But, we'll try to do cuttings so we can have the offspring!!
Michelle --- Our family is known for poker playing, game playing fun times together. My grandmother is in her mid-80's and can do math better than people in their 20's because she stays sharp with playing games. She tells me the old people in the family understood the importance of playing games together, for social interaction, stress relief and to keep exercising that brain! I'll be carrying on the family tradition for as long as the good Lord permits me to do it.
Post a Comment