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I’ve been carrying around a 6-inch 78 rpm record that belonged to my mother for years. I thought it was a message recorded by my grandfather during World War II and shipped to my mother. I have a collection of letters/postcards he sent to her from the war, and I thought this was part of that collection. Our turntables don’t play 78 rpm, so I never listened to it.
Joe has been converting LPs to MP3, and he discovered that he could convert a 78 rpm playing at 45 rpm with some cool software called Audacity.

It turns out it isn’t my grandfather at all. I don’t recognize her voice, but this must be my mother. Joe thinks she sounds just like my sister Maria. What do you think?
Hershey Park Message
The envelope is not addressed, but is pre-printed: Don’t Write– Record it on the “Voice-O-Graph”.

Thanksgiving 1978: My dad, my sister Maria, my brother Chris, my Grandmother, me and my Grandfather– at my grandparents’ house in Reading. My mom must have taken the picture.

This is how my family spent Thanksgiving almost every year when I was a kid.  Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday. My uncle and his family would come too, and we’d try to arrange the lefties and righties around the table. My grandmother made turkey, potato filling, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, regular corn, Cope’s dried corn, and who knows what else. There’d be a point where my grandmother would realize she forgot to bring something out (usually rolls!). And we’d eat till we were completely stuffed. There were always pies and cool whip for dessert, but as the word’s biggest fan of the potato, they were always an afterthought for me.

Things changed after my brother and sister graduated high school and moved out, my parents got divorced, my grandparents moved to an apartment, my grandfather passed away, and then my mother passed away. Since then, I have spent Thanksgiving pretty much wherever I am invited first. We’ve spent it at home alone, with cornish hens; we’ve spent it in Michigan with a large extended family. We’ve gone out to restaurants with my grandmother, and met my in-laws at the midway point between Michigan and Philadelphia. This year, we weren’t going to spend Thanksgiving in Michigan at all, but we managed to make it back last weekend for a nice short visit, and a Thanksgiving meal. Today, we are going to my dad’s house to spend it with Lilia’s grandparents and their friends. I wish I could also spend it with my grandmother, since Thanksgiving, in my mind, is HER holiday. I wish I could spend Thanksgiving with everyone special to me, but I can’t be two places at once, let alone several. All I can do is wish everyone out there a very Happy Thanksgiving, and hope that you are not as torn between places to celebrate as I am.

Today is my grandmother’s 88th birthday. We visited on Saturday. She made us dinner for her birthday. And got me hooked on Mini 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate. Just what you need 2 weeks after Halloween (when you still have a huge bag of Halloween candy that you didn’t give out, plus your daughter’s loot)… more candy. But yum, have you tried them? I am normally anti-mint chocolate flavor (which can be traced back to when I was ten years old and had to ingest some kind of mint flavored liquid so I could have a medical test, yuck!), but these are yummy. Actually, I never gave up York Peppermint Patties after that, it was just Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream or Choco-Mint cookies. And I guess these Minty 3 Musketeers taste more like a Peppermint Patty, but with that airy 3 Musketeers texture.

Just look at her… she’s an enabler… getting me hooked on more candy! Happy Birthday, Grammom!

Let me try this out… a Gallery Feature on WordPress. (Edited: I like it, but I don’t know how to order the pictures. Hmmm…)

I haven’t posted in nearly a month! I blame school. I have 6 days left– everything is due Monday at midnight. I was going to wait till then to post again, but I had a request for pictures!

Fall Walk

Joe took Lilia to a Chinese Restaurant when I was stuck in school

Lilia and the Panda on the mural at the library

Lilia excited to try out the new chair she built with Daddy

Doesn’t she look like she’s up to something???

This is what she is up to– it’s a peephole for shorties

We went to Michigan to visit Joe’s family for Thanksgiving. It snowed the first morning we were there!
Happy to be near snow

Garden Gnome

Snowman 1

Snowman 2 (Gram gave Lilia a sliced apple for the snowman’s mouth, but she ate it, so they used a stick instead)

Painting

We thought we’d go for a walk, but it was cold!

Molly and Belle, horses at the Christmas Tree Farm

Lilia and her Cousin Stephanie

Lilia admiring the Gingerbread House the family made

And of course, there are TONS more at my gallery!

Hope that satisfies the Lilia fans for a bit!

(PS: If you’ve left a comment in the past and didn’t see it show up within a few hours, let me know. I had over 700 spam comments and deleted them all without looking for non-spam!)