Oh Old Blue

I am being super creative today and two…yes TWO….of the writing prompts from MamaKat’s workshop. Here’s the prompts…

3. Your first car.

5. Write a love letter to someone (some thing) you love.

Yep…I loved my first car…so here goes.


Dearest Old Blue (yep, my car was named old blue),

I know that you weren’t much to look at. But in all your sky blue, old lady car, early 90s grandness you gave me freedom. You gave me my first taste of being able to feel the wind in my hair when I rolled down your windows…and you were kind enough to give me a workout in doing so through your nearly-impossible-to-turn crank down windows.

I have such fond memories or cruising through town with you, girlfriends in the backseat and maybe some in the front seat because your bench seat allowed us to squeeze in as many people as possible. Not to mention the memories that I harbor of my passengers deciding it’d be funny to reach their foot over and press my foot against the gas pedal…because of course your bench seat front was totally open.

I would also like to thank you for keeping my butt safe through my teen years of driving because we both know that I wasn’t the best at it. And I didn’t get much help from my friends. Your huge ass end make parallel parking a b**ch and while I still have mental blocks against it (yep….I REFUSE to parallel park or back into a spot…I’ll park miles away rather than do those things), it saved me from injury in many an accident. I’m sorry for backing you into a pole that time I “forgot” I had a rear-view mirror and for staring open mouthed as that big truck backed right into the side of you. I forgot you had a horn. I’m also sorry for turning you into a neighboring lane of traffic and right into a van. I blame your blind spot. You got me back for that one by causing the AC to malfunction.

Despite these setbacks, you faithfully stayed by me through my high school and college careers. I miss you terribly still and I was very sad that day I gave you up. And by the way…nice trick you pulled not starting for the car dealer as soon as I was in my new car. That one was classic.

Love always,

Keagan

My Mommy :)

I'm not sure that I have a single memory of my mother that stands out above the rest from my early childhood.  She was always there...a constant in my life...my cheerleader.  She trudged me from softball practice to gymanstics practice to school and back.  She sat at meets for entire Saturdays watching the same routines out of every little gymnast all day.  She hounded me to do what I was supposed to be doing. 

I think the best memory I have of my mother happened my freshman year in college.  I am the oldest child of three and am very much a homebody.  I enjoyed nothing more than game nights with my siblings and family dinners spent chatting about nothing in particular.  The year that I moved away to college was very bittersweet for me.  Granted I was only about an hour from home, but becasue I didn't have a car on campus I knew there wouldn't be frequent trips home.  I was excited to be on my own...excited to finally be moving onward and upward....but it was also my little sister's freshman year of high school and I was going to miss being there for that.  I was going to miss the soccer games of my brother and hearing about his middle school adventures.  So, yeah, I was a bit homesick.

Add to that that my birthday was on a weekday in the beginning of September.  I had been at school for about two weeks and I had to celebrate my 18th birthday in a dorm room with a roommate I barely knew and friends who I had met just a few days prior.  I remember trudging back to my dorm for lunch after chemistry (ugh...awful class too) and deciding that I wasn't feeling like eating at the dining hall.  Instead I cracked open a can of spaghetti-os, dumped them into my yellow bowl with a straw (no idea why I remember this), and walked to the microwave in the common room.  I sat watching the bowl twirl around and couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for my birthday girl self.  Then, as I was walking back to my room with my steaming bowl of processed goodness, I glance down the hall to see my ENTIRE FAMILY walking down the hall.  My mother hadn't wanted me to celebrate my birthday by myself and due to a fortuitous early dismissal had hauled not only my brother and sister, but my aunt (who is my mom's identical twin and like a second mother to me) and her kids up as well.  I have never been so happy to see their faces....and I think she knew just how much I needed that.

Funny Sleepers....

This was a prompt that I came across a while ago and am just getting around to writing about. I have come across my fair share of funny sleepers in the years of college roommates and sharing my bedroom and camps, etc. but none beat my brother-in-law. Let’s go backwards about 10 years….


I’ve mentioned before that hubby grew up camping at a campground all summer. When I first met him, he shared a tent with his brother…which meant that when I stayed with him, I slept in the tent with him and his brother (it was a big tent….I swear). Anyways, one night I was woken out of a dead sleep to the most amazing string of potty-mouth words I have ever heard. I sat bolt upright thinking that something awful was going on and shook hubby to wake him. He mumbled something about how I needed to go back to sleep….it was just Kevin sleep talking. What???

Apparently, Kevin has the habit of fighting people in his sleep. And he does this out loud. Often. This really wouldn’t be very funny except that after a few different times of being awoken by Kevin’s strings of swears I realized that I could egg him on. Yes….I could talk to him and he would respond. So I amused myself for quite a long time encouraging Kevin to “get em”. I even managed to get him to sit up and throw a few sleep punches. Hilarious! I have never known anyone who can carry on conversations…coherent conversations….in their sleep, but he can. The best part is he NEVER woke up and NEVER remembered anything, which made it equally as entertaining to tell him about his fights in the morning.

Any funny sleepers in your life?