Happy Birthday to my Aunt Ella who would have been 73 today!! I have written as much as I feel I have to write about Aunt Ella at this time so I will just say I love you Aunt Ella and move on!
Over at Scrapfreak, they challenged us to answer the following questions so here goes -
Name 5 favorite television shows I Love Lucy, Miami Vice, Le Femme Nikita, Gilligan's Island and The Addams Family.
Name 4 favorite memories - Taking my nephew Art fishing in Gulf Shores and he actually caught a bag and a crab (he was only about 7 or 8), my whole first trip to Germany (when I was 2 and a half) with my Mom where I actually remember playing Lego's with my cousins and walking in the woods near their house, saltwater fishing in Gulf Shores with my Dad and seeing Gatlinburg, TN for the first time with my Dad and Step mom.
Name 3 things you want to do before you die - Swim with dolphins in Florida, go to a Green Bay Packers game in the driving snow and wear cheese on my head while Brett Favre is still playing and see Germany one last time.
Give 2 names that you would use NOW if you were going to have a new addition to the family. That's simple - Heidi Elizabeth. Heidi was always my fav story growing up and Elizabeth is a family name.
Name the one thing that you're working on now to improve your life - I really need to read my Bible more!!
That's it for me! That was fun!! I can tell I am missing my family back in Bama. Mostly they seem to be included in all of my favorite memories!
Monday, July 30, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
More Memories
Three Peas in a Pod
Aunt Ella, Mom and me (Rowdy)
Last night I ended the post on a sort of sad note. This morning, I was so excited to be blogging, I got up at 3:30 AM to blog and really just talked myself out of it!
So while I was waiting for a meeting to start this morning, I wrote down some really funny experiences to share about my Aunt Ella. Yes, the realization is there that I won't get to see her again this side of heaven but getting to share her stories made me feel good!! So lets get this party started!
Shopping - My Aunt Ella was a shopping machine!! Even when she didn't feel good (she had COPD for probably the last 10 to 15 years of her life) she would just shop until she couldn't shop any more! Oberammergau is about an hour and a half outside of Munich by train and we always tried to get at least one train ride in during my visit. On one visit, my Aunt Ella, Mom, my sister Dixie and I had hit the Marienplatz to shop. Mom and Aunt Ella went into the first few stores with us but we were slowing them down so they went on ahead of us. Now bear in mind, we didn't make any plans to meet up later and I didn't remember the time the last train left for Oberammergau but I was not worried. If we didn't hook up with them during shopping, we would just make our way back to the train station and meet them back in Oberammergau if we had too! Or if we missed the train, we could stay in the city for a night. My Mom would have freaked out but I wasn't worried. My sister was going into all the shoe stores looking for Birkenstocks and was taking forever. Personally, I don't think UGLY shoe shopping should take that long. A very nice German lady told my sister that they didn't have any small sizes because they think those shoes should be for people with foot problems. I busted out laughing - she is so right but for years it was all the rage here. So, when it came time to find Aunt Ella and Mom, I suggested that we do a grid search. We each took a side of the street and walked very slowly looking at each other hoping to spot Aunt Ella and Mom. We found them. Then we lost them again and we got to grid search again. My sister and I noticed one thing while searching - everybody on that street that was in their 60's looked the same - grey hair and no makeup. Then we noticed in the stores that everything that year was black with 30 different shades of grey so Aunt Ella and Mom were really quite fashionable! I was in my standard American uniform - jeans and tennis shoes. My sister Dixie stuck out like a sore thumb - she had on light colored pants and a YELLOW sleeveless fleece jacket. I could have seen her for a mile.
Once, when Aunt Ella, Mom, Uncle Karl and I went up for the day, we went to this awesome cafeteria in some really nice department store. Who knew department stores had places like this? When we got there, it was very nice. When we sat down, things started to go horribly wrong. There was this whole bunch of older people there in their 60's and 70's eating and they all looked like they were wearing clothes that were 40 years out of style. Some of them talked to themselves, some argued with each other, some smelled like alcohol and I was starting to get a little nervous. Not my Aunt and my Mom! The longer we sat there, the longer I felt like something horrible was going to happen! I could not have blasted my group out of there with a bomb!! They settled in for the show! I still to this day do not know if it ways a program for local seniors where they dropped them off for lunch, if the local asylum closed or if they were all actors trying to get us all into the act - maybe it was the German version of Candid Camera!! What an experience! Germans are watchers...I know that myself because my head will swivel 360 degrees to watch something interesting. It's even better to watch with another German and to comment on everything going on!! I bet my Aunt Ella would have loved to sit in a mall all day long with my Mom and I watching people! I love it, I tell you!!
Food - My Aunt Ella was an awesome cook. Her stove in her kitchen was a wood burning stove. Some of the best meals I have ever eaten came off that stove. Of course, I liked everything that my Aunt Ella cooked because I grew up with an awesome German cook too! There were only three things I would not eat while there - spatzle, Weiss wurst and saurbraten. Every time I went to visit, I loved going to the local bakery for the local breakfast role which is semmel. To have those with real German butter in the morning, along with some great jelly (usually strawberry) and coffee (I want coffee every day while in Germany) in my Aunt Ella's kitchen was a treat for me! Bigtime treat. She cooked her largest meal at lunch and at night we had mostly sandwiches on rye bread. OMG. Liverwurst with butter on rye is to die for. Occasionally Aunt Ella would cook some sort of wurst, boil a potato, cut up some brie and serve with rye bread and I thought it was just wonderful. Aunt Ella always made 2 special things for me - I have the correct names written down but she cooked bread in a pot and poured homemade vanilla sauce over the bread and she made something I call pancake soup. She would fry something that was thinner than a pancake, cut it up into strips and then cook it in beef broth with a little maggi - a local flavoring, then she would add fresh chives from her garden if we were there in the summer. My mouth waters just to thing about it!
One thing I have never seen except in an Italian place in Oberammergau, is to go boxes. My German family always ate everything on their plate. I think it has something to do with they walked to the restaurant and then they walked home. They walked everywhere. They went to the grocery store everyday except on Sunday when the store was closed. We would lug all those groceries for half a mile to get back to my Aunt Ella's house. Anyway, there is an awesome place in Oberammergau called La Montenara. When we went in for the first time in 1985, there was an American couple who told us to ask for go boxes for our pizza - we were just astounded! On two separate occasions, when we were there the waiter asked me if I would like a go box for my spaghetti carbonara. My Aunt Ella was astounded the first time and I gave her the left overs for her lunch the next day and the second time it happened, my Aunt Ella expected to get my go box for her lunch again! How funny is that?
Shopping and Food were always fun with my Aunt Ella. Any time spent with her was good. We also loved going to local cafes where they served cakes, pies, coffee and tea only. My goodness! German desserts are so much better than American. They are not so sweet which makes them so much more enjoyable.
So I will stop here for tonite. Stay tuned for more fun with my Aunt Ella! Thanks for reading!
Rowdy girls RULE!
So while I was waiting for a meeting to start this morning, I wrote down some really funny experiences to share about my Aunt Ella. Yes, the realization is there that I won't get to see her again this side of heaven but getting to share her stories made me feel good!! So lets get this party started!
Shopping - My Aunt Ella was a shopping machine!! Even when she didn't feel good (she had COPD for probably the last 10 to 15 years of her life) she would just shop until she couldn't shop any more! Oberammergau is about an hour and a half outside of Munich by train and we always tried to get at least one train ride in during my visit. On one visit, my Aunt Ella, Mom, my sister Dixie and I had hit the Marienplatz to shop. Mom and Aunt Ella went into the first few stores with us but we were slowing them down so they went on ahead of us. Now bear in mind, we didn't make any plans to meet up later and I didn't remember the time the last train left for Oberammergau but I was not worried. If we didn't hook up with them during shopping, we would just make our way back to the train station and meet them back in Oberammergau if we had too! Or if we missed the train, we could stay in the city for a night. My Mom would have freaked out but I wasn't worried. My sister was going into all the shoe stores looking for Birkenstocks and was taking forever. Personally, I don't think UGLY shoe shopping should take that long. A very nice German lady told my sister that they didn't have any small sizes because they think those shoes should be for people with foot problems. I busted out laughing - she is so right but for years it was all the rage here. So, when it came time to find Aunt Ella and Mom, I suggested that we do a grid search. We each took a side of the street and walked very slowly looking at each other hoping to spot Aunt Ella and Mom. We found them. Then we lost them again and we got to grid search again. My sister and I noticed one thing while searching - everybody on that street that was in their 60's looked the same - grey hair and no makeup. Then we noticed in the stores that everything that year was black with 30 different shades of grey so Aunt Ella and Mom were really quite fashionable! I was in my standard American uniform - jeans and tennis shoes. My sister Dixie stuck out like a sore thumb - she had on light colored pants and a YELLOW sleeveless fleece jacket. I could have seen her for a mile.
Once, when Aunt Ella, Mom, Uncle Karl and I went up for the day, we went to this awesome cafeteria in some really nice department store. Who knew department stores had places like this? When we got there, it was very nice. When we sat down, things started to go horribly wrong. There was this whole bunch of older people there in their 60's and 70's eating and they all looked like they were wearing clothes that were 40 years out of style. Some of them talked to themselves, some argued with each other, some smelled like alcohol and I was starting to get a little nervous. Not my Aunt and my Mom! The longer we sat there, the longer I felt like something horrible was going to happen! I could not have blasted my group out of there with a bomb!! They settled in for the show! I still to this day do not know if it ways a program for local seniors where they dropped them off for lunch, if the local asylum closed or if they were all actors trying to get us all into the act - maybe it was the German version of Candid Camera!! What an experience! Germans are watchers...I know that myself because my head will swivel 360 degrees to watch something interesting. It's even better to watch with another German and to comment on everything going on!! I bet my Aunt Ella would have loved to sit in a mall all day long with my Mom and I watching people! I love it, I tell you!!
Food - My Aunt Ella was an awesome cook. Her stove in her kitchen was a wood burning stove. Some of the best meals I have ever eaten came off that stove. Of course, I liked everything that my Aunt Ella cooked because I grew up with an awesome German cook too! There were only three things I would not eat while there - spatzle, Weiss wurst and saurbraten. Every time I went to visit, I loved going to the local bakery for the local breakfast role which is semmel. To have those with real German butter in the morning, along with some great jelly (usually strawberry) and coffee (I want coffee every day while in Germany) in my Aunt Ella's kitchen was a treat for me! Bigtime treat. She cooked her largest meal at lunch and at night we had mostly sandwiches on rye bread. OMG. Liverwurst with butter on rye is to die for. Occasionally Aunt Ella would cook some sort of wurst, boil a potato, cut up some brie and serve with rye bread and I thought it was just wonderful. Aunt Ella always made 2 special things for me - I have the correct names written down but she cooked bread in a pot and poured homemade vanilla sauce over the bread and she made something I call pancake soup. She would fry something that was thinner than a pancake, cut it up into strips and then cook it in beef broth with a little maggi - a local flavoring, then she would add fresh chives from her garden if we were there in the summer. My mouth waters just to thing about it!
One thing I have never seen except in an Italian place in Oberammergau, is to go boxes. My German family always ate everything on their plate. I think it has something to do with they walked to the restaurant and then they walked home. They walked everywhere. They went to the grocery store everyday except on Sunday when the store was closed. We would lug all those groceries for half a mile to get back to my Aunt Ella's house. Anyway, there is an awesome place in Oberammergau called La Montenara. When we went in for the first time in 1985, there was an American couple who told us to ask for go boxes for our pizza - we were just astounded! On two separate occasions, when we were there the waiter asked me if I would like a go box for my spaghetti carbonara. My Aunt Ella was astounded the first time and I gave her the left overs for her lunch the next day and the second time it happened, my Aunt Ella expected to get my go box for her lunch again! How funny is that?
Shopping and Food were always fun with my Aunt Ella. Any time spent with her was good. We also loved going to local cafes where they served cakes, pies, coffee and tea only. My goodness! German desserts are so much better than American. They are not so sweet which makes them so much more enjoyable.
So I will stop here for tonite. Stay tuned for more fun with my Aunt Ella! Thanks for reading!
Rowdy girls RULE!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Just Remembering
While trying to figure out where to go next with my blog, I kept circling around to my German Aunt Ella. I would like to remember my Aunt Ella tonite. My Aunt Ella lived in Oberammergau, Germany all her life. She passed away in April at 72 after a visit here to the United States.
Her 73rd birthday would have been at the end of this month and I suppose that is why I keep thinking about her. Aunt Ella was very special and was my Mom's only sister. My Aunt Ella, Mom and their brother Walter grew up in the aftermath of WW2. Mom's parents built the house that my Aunt Ella lived in almost all of her life. Mom is old enough to remember that when the Americans got to Oberammergau, they turned all the Germans out of their homes. The Germans had to live where they could and eat what they could find. Aunt Ella, Mom and Uncle Walter lost both of their parents when my Mom was 15. Aunt Ella was married with 1 child by then. She and my Uncle Karl moved into my grandparents house and raised 3 children there. I will never forget seeing the house for the first time, as an adult, when I was 21. This was a part of my heritage - the place my Mom grew up and the place that welcomed us both back when I visited the second time in 1980. I had gone back when I was two and I actually remembered that I used to play with my cousin's Lego's that were stored under the kitchen table which was built into the corner of the kitchen. Germany holds one of my earliest fond memories.
When I did get to visit with my Mom, language was a small barrier but easily overcome if I could get my Aunt to speak in English. I often warned my Mom that Aunt Ella knew a lot more than she let on. My Aunt Ella had a tiny garden plot in her side yard and on several visits I would stop at the blumen shop for flowers - she was always so excited to get flowers. One year for her birthday, I had a house plant delivered for her birthday and Aunt Ella told me that she argued with the delivery person that the plant could not be possibly hers because NO ONE had ever had anything delivered to her. She went on and on about that plant. I was so excited to have done that for her. She was almost as excited to get edelweiss but didn't want to tell me that they wouldn't make it because her garden wasn't on the side of a mountain. We got a good laugh out of that.
I may have to blog about Aunt Ella in phases. We share such a rich history. The story of my grandparents is pretty different - my Mom had never seen her Dad until he came home from a Russian Prison Camp after the war was over. Conditions were horrible in the camps, extreme poverty, sickness, frostbite, etc and my Grandfather came home sick. Mom said he never recovered. That's just part of my history.
Everybody wants their story to be told. I will keep telling it until it's finished. They are interesting - all of them. I think the reason I miss my Aunt Ella is because I have started to realize that when I take my oldest daughter to Germany to visit for her first time next year, I won't be going to my Aunt Ella's house to visit her ever again. I am glad I faithfully recorded the last 4 visits in scrapbooks. I don't need the scrapbook, Aunt Ella lives on in my memory and my heart.
Gute Nacht die Freunde (good night friends)
Rowdy
Her 73rd birthday would have been at the end of this month and I suppose that is why I keep thinking about her. Aunt Ella was very special and was my Mom's only sister. My Aunt Ella, Mom and their brother Walter grew up in the aftermath of WW2. Mom's parents built the house that my Aunt Ella lived in almost all of her life. Mom is old enough to remember that when the Americans got to Oberammergau, they turned all the Germans out of their homes. The Germans had to live where they could and eat what they could find. Aunt Ella, Mom and Uncle Walter lost both of their parents when my Mom was 15. Aunt Ella was married with 1 child by then. She and my Uncle Karl moved into my grandparents house and raised 3 children there. I will never forget seeing the house for the first time, as an adult, when I was 21. This was a part of my heritage - the place my Mom grew up and the place that welcomed us both back when I visited the second time in 1980. I had gone back when I was two and I actually remembered that I used to play with my cousin's Lego's that were stored under the kitchen table which was built into the corner of the kitchen. Germany holds one of my earliest fond memories.
When I did get to visit with my Mom, language was a small barrier but easily overcome if I could get my Aunt to speak in English. I often warned my Mom that Aunt Ella knew a lot more than she let on. My Aunt Ella had a tiny garden plot in her side yard and on several visits I would stop at the blumen shop for flowers - she was always so excited to get flowers. One year for her birthday, I had a house plant delivered for her birthday and Aunt Ella told me that she argued with the delivery person that the plant could not be possibly hers because NO ONE had ever had anything delivered to her. She went on and on about that plant. I was so excited to have done that for her. She was almost as excited to get edelweiss but didn't want to tell me that they wouldn't make it because her garden wasn't on the side of a mountain. We got a good laugh out of that.
I may have to blog about Aunt Ella in phases. We share such a rich history. The story of my grandparents is pretty different - my Mom had never seen her Dad until he came home from a Russian Prison Camp after the war was over. Conditions were horrible in the camps, extreme poverty, sickness, frostbite, etc and my Grandfather came home sick. Mom said he never recovered. That's just part of my history.
Everybody wants their story to be told. I will keep telling it until it's finished. They are interesting - all of them. I think the reason I miss my Aunt Ella is because I have started to realize that when I take my oldest daughter to Germany to visit for her first time next year, I won't be going to my Aunt Ella's house to visit her ever again. I am glad I faithfully recorded the last 4 visits in scrapbooks. I don't need the scrapbook, Aunt Ella lives on in my memory and my heart.
Gute Nacht die Freunde (good night friends)
Rowdy
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
My first blog!!!
Hey There!
I am Jo Anne (aka Rowdy). I got the Rowdy nickname at a few of my scrapbooking retreats where things got a little interesting! I have been scrapbooking for 11 years now and I am also a Creative Memories Consultant. My friend Monica invited me to join Scrapfreak and now I know a LOT more about scrapbooking. I just recently had fun at a weekend retreat at HeavenLeigh Escape where Tammy, Shannon and I altered quite a few things!
Several of my friends (Shannon in particular) have suggested more than once that I should have my own blog so here goes nothing!
I really don't think my life is that interesting but I sure have an opinion about everything. Just ask me - I say that at work all the time! I have an opinion, just ask me!
I have been thinking the last few days about what I would start my blog with, so I am really still working on that but thought I would just try things out tonite!
So, stay tuned!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
