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The voting is on at Cool Scraps Digital and I need help! Please go vote for the quickpage I made (gluvsc). If you haven't picked it up yet, you can still get it by clicking on the preview below.
Friday, September 2, 2011
I need votes!
Download wordart here
The voting is on at Cool Scraps Digital and I need help! Please go vote for the quickpage I made (gluvsc). If you haven't picked it up yet, you can still get it by clicking on the preview below.
New things from Shel Belle Scraps!
Download wordart here
Shel Belle Scraps has a great new kit out called Take A Hike. The kit has 14 papers, 46 elements and three full alphas! Take a look at the preview...
Now, here's some news to help help this great kit even better.....It's on sale for half price this month!!! This is the featured kit for the quick page exchange challenge at Stuff to Scrap. So, buy the kit, make a quickpage and follow the challenge rules to get all of the quickpages made this month for free! AWESOME!
If you're in need of a fun alpha check out the Circus Alpha...
The Story of me part 4
*** My neighbor and one of the few people that have read this story all the way through asked why I introduced Clara after Lily. My thinking was that her story and Harmony's don't go together until after Lily leaves town. Let me know what you think!
Random People
Clara Van Ingen
In the course of a life there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of random people who come and go for various reasons. They may be neighbors, coworkers, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, store clerks, delivery people or any other combination of at least a million acquaintances you will encounter. Many of these people will come and go without leaving an impression on you. Others, for better or worse, will leave their mark on your life. You may like or dislike these people, but you will not love them and they will not love you.
Clara Van Ingen was my grandmother and aside from Lily the only family I had. You may think I am an awful person for not loving her, but please remember that I was a child and she did not love me either.
Clara was eighteen years old in 1970 when she married her first and only boyfriend, Harvey Gomez. They were young, dumb and in love. Clara had managed to graduate from high school but Harvey stopped attending school on the day he turned fifteen and never looked back.
Harvey made his living the way many young and illegal immigrants made their living in Miami at that time, selling drugs. It was the early seventies. The time of free love and LSD. Harvey made what seemed like good money to them and Clara was a good housekeeper. They were happy in their three room, north Miami-Dade duplex apartment. Happy, that is, until the spring of 1971 when Harvey was shot and killed as he walked out the front door.
Two days later Harvey was laid to rest in a cemetery that had served as the final resting place for Miami’s indigent and unclaimed bodies for almost fifty years. That cemetery still exists and if you visit it today you may see the brick, etched with a number, that marks his grave. Somewhere, in that same cemetery, you will also find the etched brick that now marks my grave.
Clara was eight months pregnant with Lily at the time of Harvey’s murder and the stress caused her to go into early labor. Clara was not at Harvey’s burial because while he was being laid to rest Lily was being born. Clara never visited Harvey’s gravesite and she never bonded with her daughter the way most young mothers do.
Clara was not cruel. She was simply changed. Heart broken, scared and forever changed. Clara had always known how Harvey earned his money, but she knew better than to ask for details. Other than Harvey, Clara knew nothing about the local drug dealers. She could not name them or identify them. However, she was afraid that they could name and identify her so she chose to start using her maiden name of Van Ingen again and to give Lily the last name that had belonged to her maternal grandmother, MacDougal.
For most of Lily’s youth Clara was able to go through the motions of being a mother. They lived in government subsidized housing and used food stamps to buy food. Lily was dressed in clothing that had been donated from churches or bought at the Goodwill store.
Once Lily was old enough to fend for herself Clara withdrew even further into her lonely and isolated world. She began drinking and drank on a daily basis. It would be years before anyone ever saw Clara sober again and that sobriety would not last for long.
People do not believe that babies as young as six months old are capable of forming long term memories, but that is how old I was when my first memories formed. I have been told what I think are memories are really just recollections of stories that I've been told. That is not true though, because there was no one present in the room for my first memory except for myself and Clara. She never told anyone and neither did I. At least, I never told anyone the details of that memory until today.
Buy your own copy of The Day Ginger Snapped!
Random People
Clara Van Ingen
In the course of a life there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of random people who come and go for various reasons. They may be neighbors, coworkers, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, store clerks, delivery people or any other combination of at least a million acquaintances you will encounter. Many of these people will come and go without leaving an impression on you. Others, for better or worse, will leave their mark on your life. You may like or dislike these people, but you will not love them and they will not love you.
Clara Van Ingen was my grandmother and aside from Lily the only family I had. You may think I am an awful person for not loving her, but please remember that I was a child and she did not love me either.
Clara was eighteen years old in 1970 when she married her first and only boyfriend, Harvey Gomez. They were young, dumb and in love. Clara had managed to graduate from high school but Harvey stopped attending school on the day he turned fifteen and never looked back.
Harvey made his living the way many young and illegal immigrants made their living in Miami at that time, selling drugs. It was the early seventies. The time of free love and LSD. Harvey made what seemed like good money to them and Clara was a good housekeeper. They were happy in their three room, north Miami-Dade duplex apartment. Happy, that is, until the spring of 1971 when Harvey was shot and killed as he walked out the front door.
Two days later Harvey was laid to rest in a cemetery that had served as the final resting place for Miami’s indigent and unclaimed bodies for almost fifty years. That cemetery still exists and if you visit it today you may see the brick, etched with a number, that marks his grave. Somewhere, in that same cemetery, you will also find the etched brick that now marks my grave.
Clara was eight months pregnant with Lily at the time of Harvey’s murder and the stress caused her to go into early labor. Clara was not at Harvey’s burial because while he was being laid to rest Lily was being born. Clara never visited Harvey’s gravesite and she never bonded with her daughter the way most young mothers do.
Clara was not cruel. She was simply changed. Heart broken, scared and forever changed. Clara had always known how Harvey earned his money, but she knew better than to ask for details. Other than Harvey, Clara knew nothing about the local drug dealers. She could not name them or identify them. However, she was afraid that they could name and identify her so she chose to start using her maiden name of Van Ingen again and to give Lily the last name that had belonged to her maternal grandmother, MacDougal.
For most of Lily’s youth Clara was able to go through the motions of being a mother. They lived in government subsidized housing and used food stamps to buy food. Lily was dressed in clothing that had been donated from churches or bought at the Goodwill store.
Once Lily was old enough to fend for herself Clara withdrew even further into her lonely and isolated world. She began drinking and drank on a daily basis. It would be years before anyone ever saw Clara sober again and that sobriety would not last for long.
People do not believe that babies as young as six months old are capable of forming long term memories, but that is how old I was when my first memories formed. I have been told what I think are memories are really just recollections of stories that I've been told. That is not true though, because there was no one present in the room for my first memory except for myself and Clara. She never told anyone and neither did I. At least, I never told anyone the details of that memory until today.
Buy your own copy of The Day Ginger Snapped!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (revamped)
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I was so excited when Scraps of Ellay decided to revamp and bring back her Goodbye Yellow Brick Road kit because I love it so much! Take a look at the preview...
Here are a couple of layout that I put together...
You can buy the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road kit in the Scraps of Ellay store at Stuff to Scrap and make sure you check out Ellay's blog for more layout inspiration.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
You guys are the best!
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Thank you all so much for reposting and tweeting about my postcard project! I can't wait for the cards to start rolling in.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
My annual begging post!
I know I ask for a lot from you guys, but you have always come through for me. Besides, I'm asking for the kids in my class and not for myself. Just look at the little cuties! How can you not help?
If you've read my blog for awhile you already know about the post card project I do every year and what a big hit it is with the kids, parents and other adults too.
I teach at a school that isn't in the best of neighborhoods and the kids have limited life experiences. They don't often travel outside of the neighborhood they live in. There is a whole world out there and it's beautiful and exciting and I am afraid that many of these children will never see much of it.
You can make a huge difference and help with our learning experience by sending us postcards from your hometown/state/vacation spot. We use the postcards to learn about areas outside of Miami. We locate the places on a map and discuss the best ways to travel there. We compare the similarities and differences. We check the weather. We talk about the fun things people do in the different places and the jobs they have.
The kids love it when a new postcard arrives and the lady working in the office has fun reading them too. LOL!
We'll be collecting postcards all year so there's no rush anytime you can send one would be great. Here's our address...
Ms. Brown's ClassGreynolds Park Elementary
1536 N.E. 179th Street
North Miami Beach, FL 33162
Want a chance to win a $5 gift certificate to Stuff to Scrap? Just make a post about our postcard project on your blog. You can put the address or just send your readers here. I'll also be linking to this post on twitter so you can retweet that for me too.
If you make a blog post or retweet, please come back here and leave a comment letting me know. Next Monday (September 5) I'll pick one person to get the Stuff to Scrap gift certificate.
Thanks for helping! You guys are the best!
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