flashback friday #2

Because so many people are reading my blog who haven't known me my whole entire life, I want to let them in on my little world. My former world. Life as I once knew it.

(OK, it's not really that many people.)

I'm from here.

No, I didn't Photoshop that picture to add text to the water tower. It really says that. (And I want Photoshop for Christmas, by the way. It'll be great for my scrapbooking habit.)

Moving on. . . you won't find any of these

at one of these

in Portland or Vancouver.

Yes, folks. . .that's an Amish hitching post at the Walmart. Which was the only place to shop in Ashland, Ohio. (Someplace special.) In fact, it's not even open anymore because they built a Walmart Super Center after I left.

You may be wondering why in the world does she have a picture of Amish horses hitching up at the local Walmart. Well, one of my friends drove around town and took pictures of all the special spots for me and made a fantastic little photo album to look at in case I get homesick. Wasn't that sweet? She even took a picture of my old apartment. I lived here, upstairs. My front door was the door on the left. Downstairs "lived" a lady my sister fondly called "Psycho Cindy." She only spent the night in her apartment once in the whole seven years that I lived there. And that just so happened to be the night my sister came over to spend the night and brought along her German shepherd, Murphy. My sister thought she was in the mafia. This woman had her mail delivered, and that's just about the only reason she was ever there. Well, I did hear her vacuum occasionally. She also ratted on me when my brother-in-law installed a porch swing. She called the landlord and they sent me a letter about defacing the property. When I told them that the house next door (also owned by them) had a porch swing, and that she wasn't ever there anyway, they let it slide. She was just bizarre.

Thank you, Jenny Culler, for all these pictures to remind me of my roots when I'm missing Trash-Can, Ohio!

And perhaps I am a little homesick because it's pumpkin patch season. My sister and I had a little tradition of taking the kids to the patch every year. The real reason she wanted to go was because the guy driving the wagon around was secretly in love with her. He recognized her every year. We would laugh about him and how happy he was that she came back for her pumpkins incessantly for days. Once, I fell off the wagon. Not while it was moving. So it wasn't like we were trotting along and hit a pothole and off I went. No, I was simply getting down to help Darick get down and I missed the step or lost my balance or something. My sister, again, laughed about it incessantly for days. (I miss you, sister dear. You are keeping the tradition alive, aren't you? You know your boyfriend is expecting to see you!)

Here I am with Darick and Hannah. He's now nine and she's six. How time flies.

Darick and some guy driving the wagon. (No, he's not her pumpkin patch lover boy.)

Hannah. She looks like me, huh? (Just don't tell my sister I said that.) Once we were at that very Walmart pictured above and some lady came up to me and said how cute my daughter was. My sister quickly informed her that she was HER daughter. She gets a little touchy about that whole subject :)

Cutest kids at the patch. Hope you guys pick out really good pumpkins this year. I miss you and I love you big much :)