Living Large In Our Little House

AP

This month has been one of reflec­tion for me. Not just because I spent time with my good friends from child­hood last week­end, but there was also Veteran’s Day. The anniver­sary of my brother’s death always puts me into the mode of look­ing back as do the hol­i­days. On Thanksgiving, I made two of my mother’s tra­di­tional recipes and there’s noth­ing bet­ter to take you back than a tra­di­tional recipe.

Then there was news of Prince William’s engage­ment. As one of the news­cast­ers said when the news broke, “There are those of us at a cer­tain age that remem­ber the engage­ment and wed­ding of Prince William’s par­ents, Charles and Diana.”

I was a 17-year-old junior in high school when Charles and Diana became engaged in the win­ter of 1981. My life was not unlike other teenagers at the time. I was going to school, work­ing part time, par­tic­i­pat­ing in drill team, mak­ing time to spend with Dale and look­ing for­ward to my life after high school.

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This past week­end was the week­end for our now annual slum­ber party with Lora and Shelly, two friends I went so school with.

Last year, I wrote about the Slumber Party at Campbell Town, which we held here overnight. I hadn’t seen either of my friends since grad­u­a­tion 27 years before.

Last year was all about get­ting to know one another again and get­ting caught up on a life­time of liv­ing since grad­u­a­tion night in 1982. I’m sure all of us were a lit­tle appre­hen­sive about what to expect after so many years. When we set­tled into our friend­ships as if we had never been apart, we real­ized how much we still enjoyed each other and decided to expand it to two nights and make our reunion an annual event.

This year, it was less about catch­ing up on old times and more about mak­ing new mem­o­ries. But it was also about get­ting away from the stresses of adult life and there's no bet­ter way to do it than with friends I knew before respon­si­bil­ity and stress.

We decided to take our slum­ber party to Branson, Mo., where we could enjoy the hol­i­day lights and fes­tiv­i­ties. The city is a great one for a girl friend’s get­away any­time of the year, but the hol­i­days just makes it quite magical.

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Upon first glance, it may not appear as such in the pic­ture, but this is actu­ally a glass half full story.

Take one wet moun­tain road, dark­ness and a slick curve and you have the recipe for poten­tial disaster.

I’m not happy about my 22-year-old Baby Blazer, which was in near mint con­di­tion before I left home Tuesday evening.

I’m thank­ful this is the worst of it. I wasn’t going fast when I hit the other truck and he was also not injured. (Our friends tell Dale and I we drive like old peo­ple and one friend even refuses to let me drive because I go “too slow”).

It wasn’t until we got home Tuesday night that Dale said, “Well, it could have been worse. That truck may not have been there at all.”

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Last year, I wrote about learn­ing to share the remote with my hus­band in Our Little House.

That hasn’t changed; we typ­i­cally don’t have a lot of time dur­ing the evenings or even on week­ends to watch much.

The prob­lem seems to arise after hours, when I want to go to bed and Dale decides he wants to stay up and watch a movie or fin­ish a show he’s already started.

This becomes a prob­lem because I have trou­ble sleep­ing through the night; I’ve become an ultra light sleeper and have had this issue since we moved. It becomes worse when the lights or tele­vi­sion are on, even on a low volume.

Close the bed­room door?

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