So today sort of begins my birthday weekend. I’ll be 41 on Monday. My husband has been out doing some birthday/Christmas shopping this past week, which had him coming home late from work a couple of times. So tonight, when he came home from work, he asked me if I wanted to start my birthday celebrating tonight. Of course, I’m not going to say “No”. So he handed me a metallic red box. I opened it, and it was full of metallic red confetti, and at the bottom of the box was a single car key. I realized that it was a car key, but just couldn’t fathom that I was getting a car on my birthday! So he took me outside and parked on the street was a 2004 Ford Freestar mini van!

The car we have been driving, a ’94 Oldsmobile for the past two years. In that time, it has slowly had things go wrong with it. As of now, both front power windows no longer have power. The side passenger window for a long time wouldn’t stay down so it’s now held up with duct tape, (but still tends to come down so I have one of the kids hold it in place when I drive over railroad tracks & speed bumps). The radio antennae stopped extending so I couldn’t get the Christian stations on the radio. And the air conditioner stopped working. And by now, the engine hasn’t been sounding too well either, and Kevin hasn’t felt very comfortable with me driving it with the kids to church and back (driving through rural roads to get there). So he, with the help of our neighbor, test drove and picked out a van, with low miles (always a plus). And tonight, I’m back in the mini-van club!

Um, yeah……….Well so much for “Wordless Wednesday”. I need to say a few words about this cat. I’d like to know what Oscar does that is so tiring that he needs to sleep all day………..on my bed. I know for certain, that he wasn’t spending hours wrapping these presents to tire him out.

(the picture on the left was what I discovered while typing this blog. Don’t worry, my kitchen is clean and I normally don’t allow cats to be on the counters or in the sink. But they sneak up there anyway thinking that there’s something for them)

Well……….we’ve already cruised through the first week of December and Christmas will be here faster than I’ll be ready for it!

As tradition has been, on the first day after Thanksgiving, we put away all of the fall decorations, and bring out the Christmas ones (as seen in this post’s pictures………..the paper bag at the bottom is not one of the decorations…. in case you’re wondering……..we just haven’t moved it yet).

I have probably said it before and will say it again, this year has gone by faster than any other year in my past. Not only am I getting ready for Christmas, but I’ve been sewing quite a bit too. My kids needed some more winter sleepwear (especially my son, whose legs grew longer than his pant legs in the past 6 months). Then there is always school to oversee, errands and more errands to run, and regular household chores. Just really busy! I joined a group on Flickr in which I am supposed to post a picture of my self (or at least have a part of myself in it) every day. I haven’t been always able to do that every day, because…………….I’m busy……….and so is my husband. He’s been putting up our lights and he really, really likes to have alot. For us, this is the time of year, in which if the Christmas lights are on, we don’t turn on any vacuums or hairdryers. A small sacrifice for a beautiful display. I’m very glad to have a husband who likes to put up lights!

So today, was one of those busy days. My daughter had a Jr. High youth group Christmas party at 1:00. I needed to do grocery and Christmas shopping. The party was only 2 hours long and I needed more time. So I awoke early (earlier than the time my husband wanted to wake up on a Saturday) and headed out the door just before 10. I cruised through one store, found most of my groceries (so we won’t starve, should the forecasted snow arrive) and was back home in time to put them away, and eat something (cereal) before delivering my 13 year old to her party.

My first stop in my Christmas shopping venture was to one of our shopping malls, to find a few requested items. I had hoped to get a few items from our local university’s store, as my son has become a fan, (and our team is headed for the Rose Bowl, so I wanted to see about getting commemorative t-shirts). That store was FULL of people so I decided to go back later this week…..when most of those shoppers are at work.

I think that probably the funniest moment of the day, was when I was at the Christian bookstore. A man came in and said rather loudly to the lady behind the counter, that only in our town “would you find THIS store next to THAT one!”. “THAT” store…….is a Victoria’s Secret. Those two stores had been next to each other for years (the Christian bookstore has been known by different names) and I never saw the irony. Maybe I was too busy noticing the irony of the church down the road from us that shares a parking lot with an adult bookstore (I have no idea which one arrived in that lot first).

After my visit to the mall and a local ShopKo, it was time to pick up my daughter and then take her shopping. She wants to buy Christmas gifts for family and she has two friends who have birthdays this month. So we ventured toward the other mall, stopping at a couple of craft stores on the way (my daughter had the same “excitement” at those stores that I used to have when my mom would take me to the fabric store when I was little. She was very bored). I tried not to take too long in gathering paper for scrapbooking (after the holidays).

Once at the mall, we walked all over the place. Visited several stores, found gifts, and tried to avoid bumping in to people. By the time we were finished, we were both very tired, so we treated ourselves to a latte/hot cocoa.

Now we’re home, resting our weary feet, and legs, and the plastic. Our house is lit up (though not quite bright enough for planes to see yet).

Lp

What prompted the idea for this subject was my needing to get a bottle of V-8 juice off of a high shelf, put there by my husband. When we were putting groceries away, he put the juice on the shelf closest to the ceiling in our laundry room and even though I had a step stool (the kind that has a fold down seat on top), I still needed to climb on top of the washing machine, to reach it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had an issue like this. To clarify, I’m not a little person (like on TLC’s “Little People, Big World”). I’m just an average short person. I’m 5 feet, 3.5 inches tall. I just barely still qualify to buy “petite” clothes (the pants tend to be slightly too short if I buy them in that size so I buy “Average” and hem them a bit). My husband is nearly a whole foot taller than me. So he’s looking at life and looking at things from a different perspective, literally. Putting away groceries that I would regularly use, more than he would, is just one of our differences. Just as he’s not thinking to put things lower, I dont think to look for things higher than my eye level. There have been several times when I’ve looked in our refrigerator for what I know is a full jug of milk or juice, that should be there, and isn’t. I can look everywhere, within my eye level or below and not find it until maybe I happen to look up and find the item on top of the fridge. What usually happens in this case is that my husband will need something in the refrigerator that is in the back, so he’ll take out the milk or juice that is in front of it, put it up on top of the fridge, and then forget to put it back. Since I’m not looking up high for milk or juice on top of the fridge, I usually don’t find it until the beverage is warm (or until it falls on my head when I open the refrigerator. No brain injury yet)). It’s something for us both to improve on.

My need to adjust to living with taller people didn’t start when I married. I was born to taller parents. My dad was nearly 5′ 11″, and my mother was nearly 5′ 9″ (she wore 3″ heels most of the time and wore her hair rather poofy which made her look taller). When I was little, it was assumed that I would be taller like my parents. My mother calculated my full height when I was two, using a formula she found in my baby book. Using those calculations, the results showed that I would be the height that I am now. She reconfigured it several times because “certainly she can’t be THAT short!”. But, my paternal grandmother’s gene pool kicked in (she was just over 5′ 2″) and I never became a tall person. My grandma would tell me several times, “I stopped growing when I was 12 and so will you” and “You’ll never be taller than me”.

Well I did stop growing when I was 12. Until then, I was a little taller than all of my friends, and then when I stopped growing, they all started. Within one year after my 12th birthday, all of my friends were significantly taller than me. From then on, I felt the need to remind the adults at church and school (actually the same place) that I was still the same age as my friends. Because I was shorter, it was suddenly assumed that I was younger. When we went on field trips and had to take separate cars, there were many times I was sent to ride in the car designated for “the younger students”. If we had to stand according to height for a picture or class presentation, the shorter row was referred to as “the younger students”. A friend of mine who went to that same school always remembers that I was a stickler about letting folks know that I was older than my friends. She was surprised that it didn’t seem to be an issue with me now. Well when you’re grown, and so is everyone else, no one is mistaking you for being a 6th grader when you’re in high school (and when you turn 40, you really don’t mind if people think that you’re younger!).

Living with a tall parent was a challenge for both of us. My mom would put things up high because that is where she’d look for them (just like the situation that I live in now) and I rarely ever did unless she told me to. When I would walk with her, she took longer strides, so I had to race walk to keep up with her. She heard a song about short people on a tv show, and liked to tease me by singing that song. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a song about tall people to sing back to her. I think that being shorter hindered my mother from seeing me as an adult as well. She really didn’t see me as an adult, until I was 26, when I married. Until then, I was little and still viewed as a little girl. I think that my aunt’s view of me was the same as my mother’s because once I married, she didn’t know how to relate to me or talk to me at all.

People who had known me since I was 2, assumed that I would be tall like my mom and would assume that I was in 6th grade and would say “Oh, you have plenty of time to grow” and “You’re going to be tall like your mother” and when I’d say that I quit growing, they’d ask, “Well how old are you now” and I’d say, “Twenty”, to which they’d stop smiling and say “oh”.

Now being short or “vertically challenged” (as a former co-worker told me once), has brought on some interesting requests. We’re asked to look under things more because I guess it’s easier for us or because we’re closer to the ground. The oddest request that I’ve ever had was from a tall female coworker. I used to work in a grocery store deli, and we saw alot of male customers or venders during the day, and this coworker always managed to see someone who she thought was cute, and she wanted to look her best when he came by our counter (we were wearing greasy aprons and smelling like fried chicken, jo-jo’s & bleach, how could we really improve on that?). Anyway, any time “cute” guy was heading our way, she’d ask “Lisa, quick! Look! Do I have boogers up my nose?” Yes, that’s right, apparently short people can be “booger inspectors” for tall folks. I never did put THAT on my resume!

I guess that being shorter is also something that is sometime envied a little. Something that my mom told me on many occasions, was that “at least you won’t have to worry about finding a husband who is taller than you”. I guess she was right. I found one who is quite a bit taller. Tall enough to get the things off of those high shelves……….the things that he originally put up there.

I don’t have a picture to coincide with this blog entry. I thought that I could take a picture of myself next to my actual height on the measuring tape, but I just don’t feel like taking the time to do that. I could also post a picture of my husband and myself to show our height difference, however, he really doesn’t like me to post pictures of him because he doesn’t think that he photographs well (I think that he looks fine, but I’ll respect his wishes……….for now). Lp

This morning, I commented to Kevin that I was “going to make breakfast for the scholars”. He thought I had said that I was going to make breakfast for the “stallers”. I suppose that both terms would adequately describe our kids. They are still students, but they certainly try to find ways to postpone school. Lp