Scattered Pictures

     I recently had a loss in my family and it got me to thinking about my family memories. Death always brings a wave of sadness, when you love someone, just because of the loss. But, looking back on the people I've lost, I smile, because they were in my life.
    I have had a rich life and some wonderful memories because of the people who are and were in it.

   My dad passed away when I was fourteen but I have to say he filled my life with some wonderful and exciting memories. He loved his toys. We had a red and white glittery fiberglass ski boat that we took out on the lake regularly when I was little. I remember my dad pulling me behind the boat on a large disk probably around the age of five or six then as I got a little older he taught me to ski on skis he made himself. I can actually remember him making them.

     He would pull me behind the boat until my arms felt like they would fall off or until I had inhaled too much lake water from trying to get up on the skis. I never was any good, never learned how to slalom ski. I was lucky to make it up on two, but it didn't deter me from having a great time on the water.
     My dad also taught me to ride a motorcycle. I can remember many trips along the back roads of Texas sometimes riding my Honda 100 that I shared with my sister and sometimes riding behind my dad.

There were a few times that the vibration of the wheels against the open roads lulled me to sleep. 






When I was around six my dad loaded the family up in our station wagon

and drove from central Texas to Miami Florida. It seemed to take forever to get there but I still have several memories of the trip including the one where we found out we were driving through a hurricane coming home and realizing the hotel we stayed in was destroyed from it.
   





     My step-dad came into my life when I was a teen. He was a cowboy through and through along with being a fireman. I quickly developed an interest in his line of work and he let me go on some of the calls with him. He was a dyed in the wool hero if I ever saw one. He was also a shade tree mechanic so before I went off to college he wanted to make sure I knew a few things about my truck.

     I can remember crawling under the truck and him making me drain the oil then grease the bearings in the wheel joints. He was just like my dad in the fact that he never thought girls couldn't do guy things but when I wasn't covered in grease and grime he still treated me like a princess.
     My grandma and grandpa were amazing. Being first generation immigrants they both had accents. My grandpa was Swedish and my grandma Czech. I can still remember the way they spoke. Grandpa could never say my name quite right.







He was another one who thought girls could do anything guys could and many times he would let me paint or build things with him when he was doing some of his carpentry projects and he took me fishing with him on many occasions.
   

My grandma could feed an army if we gave her thirty minutes. She loved to cook and bake and made the best sugar cookies in the world
and to this day I still have no idea what she meant by a pinch or a dash. I can't replicate her recipes to save my life even though I have tried a million times.



     My favorite thing she made was a lemon chiffon pie with a graham cracker crust. I absolutely love my memories cooking with her and have pulled my grandson in the kitchen with me a time or two to bake even though my food is nowhere near as tasty as hers. It's the memories that count.
 
  I could go on and on with memories that have made me feel like I lead a charmed life. Looking back, sometimes I do get melancholy when I think of them but it's just because I wish I had more time to make amazing memories with them. But, it helps me remember I need to be focused on making amazing memories with the ones I love who I still have with me.
   
   

24 to Life

     When I was writing 24 to Life, I had to come up with a good name for a gym that hadn't been used and the name 24 to Life popped into my head. It's meaning, at that time, was that the gym was open twenty-four hours for you to pursue a better life. I thought it was a pretty good name for a gym.
     As the story went on though, the name took on a different meaning and that is why it became the title of the book.
     We all will have days where we think life couldn't get any better and days where we think life can't get any worse. And the funny thing about life is, it can happen all within twenty-four hours. One day, you are hired for the job of your dreams and then next you wreck your car and have no way to get to that perfect job.
     But again, that's life and it's like the Oklahoma weather, if you don't like it, give it a minute or a day and it will change.
     Too many of us these days though, don't remember that. We get stuck in the muck and mire of the bad situations and we just give up. We don't remember the day we were hired for that perfect job or we found that perfect car or we met that perfect someone, we just look around at the right now and say, "It's never going to get better," and with that attitude, chances are it might not.
     The greatest victories in life are the ones where you grabbed hold of your bootstraps and pulled yourself out of the hole you were in. Whether you dug it yourself or just by circumstances out of your control, got thrown in, doesn't matter.
     What matters is, being a survivor not a victim. Regardless of what hand you are dealt in life, or how many times you get thrown down that hole, if you keep climbing out, you will see better days.
     Sometimes it takes a little longer than a day, but if you set your sights on getting up and not giving up, you will be rewarded.