10 Things...

10 Things I Remember From Childhood...

1. Leaving a whole bag of DQ Dilly Bars on the basement floor because 

it was too scary to walk all the way across the basement to the chest freezer.

~ This is the #1 thing I remember because my family never lets me forget it!

2. Traveling down East and taking the ferry across to PEI

~ My memory of the ferry is basically: Sky... water... sky... water... sky... water...

3. Getting chased by a dog up a pathway that my sister and I were told not to walk down.

~ Running so hard that our feet were slapping the backs of our heads and our 

knees were crashing into our chins! Then my sister fell and I had to go back 

and start dragging her up the path, and she was all like,  

"Save yourself! Go on without me! Tell Mom & Dad I love them!" 

 [Cue the sweeping orchestral music]

Well, okay, maybe she didn't utter any selfless words like that - she was only 5 - 

but I did need to drag her and she did cry a lot, and so did I 

once we got home and my parents found out about our little walk.  

For some reason, they had absolutely no sympathy for the drama we had just survived!

4. Boiled maple syrup on snow.

~ Mom would boil syrup, while we were sent outside to collect snow in our foil pie plates. 

The syrup would be poured on the snow and we would sit at the picnic table and gobble 

it with a wooden popsicle sticks. Eating golden snow was part of the fun of living up North!  ;)

5. Dad cooking anything on the hibachi. 

Absolutely. Anything. 

YUM!

6. Side yard skating rinks.

~ Sitting beside my sister in the scoop of the big oversized snow shovel. 

Dad would pull us around, flattening the snow down in our yard. Then 

my brothers would help him 'flood' the big rectangle with the hose.

If the temps held, a day or two later, we were skating!

7. Thinking I had cut my sister's toes off in the sandbox.

~  It was summer, my sister and I were digging in the sandbox. 

She decided it would be fun to bury her feet in the the sand. So I set to work 

digging a hole for her feet and I took the sand I was removing and packed it into 

a big ol' Heinz ketchup can. When I finished filling the can with every single grain

of sand it could hold, I told my sister to stick her feet in the hole and I picked up the can, 

flipped it over and started to shake the sand loose. The only problem is that my 6 year old 

self didn't always know how heavy things could be and how slippery metal cans are with 

sand covered hands and - floomp! Down went the heavy sand-filled container onto my sister's toes!

She screamed. I screamed. We both screamed - but not for ice cream!

I ran to my Mom (who was on the phone) with tears pouring out of my eyes. 

I just kept shouting, "I think I cut off Chrissy's toes! I think I cut off Chrissy's toes!!" 

with several 'I'm sorry's' authentically tucked in between. It turned out I hadn't severed

any of my sister's toes... she only ended up with some bruises on her little feet. Phew!    

8. Dukes of Hazard Influence

Watching my sister roll the windows down in our parents Chevy Impala, walk away to a 

respectable distance, then turn and run toward the car and jump in through the window 

like the guys on the Dukes of Hazard. ~ Let's just say that Bo and Luke Duke made it look 

easy - they never got their clothing caught on door locks and weatherstripping!

9. My first Crayola art kit!

This is probably my favourite memory! My Dad & Mom traveled to the States for a week 

and I have no idea what they brought back for my brothers and sister, but I do remember what they 

brought for me - a Crayola art kit!! The perfect orange plastic slanted 'table' looked like 

something a real artist would use! It even had built-in slots for holding crayons and 

paintbrushes, oh and it came with little pans of watercolour paint too! 

I felt like the richest kid on earth!!

10. The day my Mom had had enough!  

It was the middle of Summer and my Dad was away. The sun was beating down 

on all us kids and we could not find relief from its heat. We all started getting 

cranky and irritable. That irritability led to all out fighting with each other.  

 Picture this: Four kids, under the age of 10, continually pestering each other, 

the noise in the house was rising with the heat. My Mom suddenly stopped what 

she was doing, stood in front of us and declared that she had had enough! 

We were doomed - we pushed Mom too far - we were dead meat!

The very next words out of her mouth were forever written in my memory as the 

most unexpected AND the most relief-inducing words ever spoken by one of my parents:

"Go get your bathing suits on; we're going to the lake!"  

There are so many things I hope my kids remember when they look back on their childhood.

There are so many things, I pray they won't ever forget!

It is those important things that I want them always to remember 

that inspired me to make this design a few years ago:

   "10 Things I Want You to Remember"

(watercolour, approx. 8" x 10")

Everything we want to do as parents and everything 

we want our kids to remember about us while they're 

growing up and after they have grown up!

♥ Cath-