Books

The Family Bookshelf – My Memory Box

/ Jodi / 47 Comments
This week leading up to Christmas, I am sharing a few of my favorite posts from the past.  I hope you enjoy this visit to my family bookshelf – my memory box – as much as I do revisiting it and looking at it every day.

The Family Bookshelf – My Memory Box

 

the family bookshelf

Do you have a favorite place or space in your home?

One of my favorite spaces in our home is the family bookshelf.

It’s kind of center stage in the great room commanding half of one wall measuring about 8 feet wide by 9 feet tall.

Hubby custom built this a few years after we built our house.

My “usual” seat on the couch directly faces this “memory box,” and sometimes I just stare at all the memories while hubby is staring at the television or the latest book he is reading in the evening.

It’s filled with so many favorite things…

There are a lot of family photos – some from a long time ago and some more recent…

Like our oldest son at 4 years old playing a toy saxophone and then a framed newspaper clipping of him playing a saxophone solo in the high school band.  There’s one of him and his beautiful wife – our beloved daughter-in-law.  There’s one of him and his Dad with a cake they made for a Cub Scouts competition and one in his “cap and gown” at his preschool graduation.

There are photos of our youngest son dressed in his favorite Halloween costume that he wore two years in a row when he was Peter Pan at 4 and 5 years old, in his football uniform for midget football, sticking his tongue out with his Dad and brother on a summer trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park, grinning at me at his preschool graduation, with me at a Kindergarten party where I was his homeroom mom, and with his sweet girlfriend now.

There is a photo of my hubby with his sister when they were young children…  a sister and aunt who we loved dearly and lost way too early from cancer.

And there is a photo of my father-in-law taken on his last day on this earth when he was blessed with a surprise visit from a favorite niece from far away who he hadn’t seen in years.  It is such a sweet memory to see him so happy just hours before he left us.  We will never be able to express enough gratitude to this sweet lady for the joy she brought him that special day.

There are photos of friends and fun times, like a trip to Hawaii with our besties and holiday celebrations with all of our kids.

There are a few books, some significant, some not…  There are high school yearbooks, photo memory books, bibles, favorite children’s books – like our very favorite bedtime read-aloud story book – “Bob and Jack – A Boy and his Yak.”  There are baby books for each of the boys and a special memory book made by my cousin Joyce and given to me at Christmas featuring my first year blogging at LifeinBetween.me.  There are books read at book club and business books and bird books and favorite fiction authors.  There is a copy of the book I wrote and had bound as a gift to my Dad for our second Christmas together after reuniting.  Our wedding photo albums sit on one of the shelves.

Then there are other sweet memorabilia, like our youngest son’s stuffed animal “Curious George” who he loved so dearly as a child and slept with every night.

There is the birthday bear my Dad sent me on my first birthday after we reunited after too many years apart with a sweet note saying, “Happy Birthday Jodi, My Little Girl.  Love you, Dad.”

It was my 48th birthday.

And there is the little trinket box he gave me that says, “Daughter – With all the Beauty on the Earth, there is nothing more Beautiful than you.”

There’s a statue of a yellow lab that was my father-in-law’s sweet memory of his beloved “Brandy.”

There’s a cruise ship trophy our oldest son won singing Karaoke on a cruise with his now wife on a family vacation he went on with her family.

There are “Friends” blocks given to me from my BFF.

There is a photo album of our Cleveland friends wearing Pittsburgh Steelers shirts and poses too explicit to share here after they lost a family bet during a rival football playoff season.

There is a gorgeous painting from a faraway friend who suffered from a life-altering traumatic brain injury that completely changed her life and turned a corporate CEO into an artistic genius and a genuinely beautiful creative inspiration.  I bought her very first piece of artwork, and I treasure it so dearly.

My heart is smiling as I type and recall these memories.

You see – a home is not brick and mortar.  It is not plaster and paint.

It is the memories.

It is the family and friends and people you share it with.

My favorite little plaque hanging on another wall in our home says it all….

“The thing I love most about my home is who I share it with.”

So that is my special home “space.”

What is yours?

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

A Grandma’s Love

/ Jodi / 52 Comments

Grandma Susan reading Klaus the Mouse and other Silly Animal Tales to her grandchildren

A Grandma’s Love.

Grandma Susan (as her grandchildren fondly refer to her) is the kind of Grandma I aspire to be.

In fact…  she’s the kind of human being I aspire to be.

I met Susan through her oldest grandson, who was my youngest son’s “roomer” in college.

To know Susan is to love Susan.  Her joy for life, her positive attitude, her love for her family, her smile, the undeniable glow that radiates from her and touches everyone she encounters….  There is something very special about Susan, and I am so fortunate to call her my friend.

Without my even knowing, Susan purchased a copy of the book I announced authoring and illustrating about a month ago, Klaus the Mouse and other Silly Animal Tales.  When she received it, she gathered her grandchildren – now aged 13-27 (and even the spouses of those that are married now!), for a fun reading.  They happened to be gathering together for a bridal shower for one of her granddaughters, but they all took some time to sit down with Grandma Susan to listen to a few “silly stories.”

Can you believe how sweet this is?

You see, Susan is a retired school librarian and long-time lover of books and reading to children (and especially her grandchildren!).

I guess it really is true that Klaus the Mouse and other Silly Animal Tales is a book for children of all ages, and it’s been so fun hearing stories from folks who have purchased the book.

Susan’s granddaughter, Charrie, told me Adele the Gazelle was her favorite character.

Thank you, Susan, for sharing your love, and for all your beautiful grands who gave permission for us to share.

I’m a new grandma, whose first granddaughter is not even a year old, but I hope I will be as loved and adored as Grandma Susan when my grand(s) are teenagers and married!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

The Family Bookshelf – My Memory Box

/ Jodi / 27 Comments

the family bookshelf

Do you have a favorite place or space in your home?

One of my favorite spaces in our home is the family bookshelf.

It’s kind of center stage in the great room commanding half of one wall measuring about 8 feet wide by 9 feet tall.

Hubby custom built this a few years after we built our house.

My “usual” seat on the couch directly faces this “memory box,” and sometimes I just stare at all the memories while hubby is staring at the television or the latest book he is reading in the evening.

It’s filled with so many favorite things…

There are a lot of family photos – some from a long time ago and some more recent…

Like our oldest son at 4 years old playing a toy saxophone and then a framed newspaper clipping of him playing a saxophone solo in the high school band.  There’s one of him and his beautiful wife – our beloved daughter-in-law.  There’s one of him and his Dad with a cake they made for a Cub Scouts competition and one in his “cap and gown” at his preschool graduation.

There are photos of our youngest son dressed in his favorite Halloween costume that he wore two years in a row when he was Peter Pan at 4 and 5 years old, in his football uniform for midget football, sticking his tongue out with his Dad and brother on a summer trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park, grinning at me at his preschool graduation, with me at a Kindergarten party where I was his homeroom mom, and with his sweet girlfriend now.

There is a photo of my hubby with his sister when they were young children…  a sister and aunt who we loved dearly and lost way too early from cancer.

And there is a photo of my father-in-law taken on his last day on this earth when he was blessed with a surprise visit from a favorite niece from far away who he hadn’t seen in years.  It is such a sweet memory to see him so happy just hours before he left us.  We will never be able to express enough gratitude to this sweet lady for the joy she brought him that special day.

There are photos of friends and fun times, like a trip to Hawaii with our besties and holiday celebrations with all of our kids.

There are a few books, some significant, some not…  There are high school yearbooks, photo memory books, bibles, favorite children’s books – like our very favorite bedtime read-aloud story book – “Bob and Jack – A Boy and his Yak.”  There are baby books for each of the boys and a special memory book made by my cousin Joyce and given to me at Christmas featuring my first year blogging at LifeinBetween.me.  There are books read at book club and business books and bird books and favorite fiction authors.  There is a copy of the book I wrote and had bound as a gift to my Dad for our second Christmas together after reuniting.  Our wedding photo albums sit on one of the shelves.

Then there are other sweet memorabilia, like our youngest son’s stuffed animal “Curious George” who he loved so dearly as a child and slept with every night.

There is the birthday bear my Dad sent me on my first birthday after we reunited after too many years apart with a sweet note saying, “Happy Birthday Jodi, My Little Girl.  Love you, Dad.”

It was my 48th birthday.

And there is the little trinket box he gave me that says, “Daughter – With all the Beauty on the Earth, there is nothing more Beautiful than you.”

There’s a statue of a yellow lab that was my father-in-law’s sweet memory of his beloved “Brandy.”

There’s a cruise ship trophy our oldest son won singing Karaoke on a cruise with his now wife on a family vacation he went on with her family.

There are “Friends” blocks given to me from my BFF.

There is a photo album of our Cleveland friends wearing Pittsburgh Steelers shirts and poses too explicit to share here after they lost a family bet during a rival football playoff season.

There is a gorgeous painting from a faraway friend who suffered from a life-altering traumatic brain injury that completely changed her life and turned a corporate CEO into an artistic genius and a genuinely beautiful creative inspiration.  I bought her very first piece of artwork, and I treasure it so dearly.

My heart is smiling as I type and recall these memories.

You see – a home is not brick and mortar.  It is not plaster and paint.

It is the memories.

It is the family and friends and people you share it with.

My favorite little plaque hanging on another wall in our home says it all….

“The thing I love most about my home is who I share it with.”

So that is my special home “space.”

What is yours?

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

I call your “Bluff”

/ Jodi / 7 Comments

bluffWhat a wonderful weekend we had!  As it winds down this Sunday evening, I am relaxing and reflecting on it all.

It started early on Friday with a late afternoon trip to Conneaut for “THE BEST BOOK CLUB EVER.”

“Oh Rob,” as I affectionately like to refer to our gracious co-host (who happens to be our cousin and one of our BFFs,  along with his amazing wife and one of my personal heroes, Joyce) has begun a blog of his own, which I encourage you to read:  Reflections.  Rob has such an endearing and though-provoking reflective perspective on life that you just can’t help but smile to think about him.

rob bc

I  daresay… even if you don’t like to read, you might just do it to be part of this amazing group! (As Joyce and Rob can attest as they have evolved into making room in their home for 30 or more people at times.)

It is a diverse and fascinating group of women AND men of all ages, backgrounds, professions and political views that comes together every couple months to drink a little wine, nosh on yummy treats (like these amazing flat bread, goat cheese, fresh fig and balsamic vinaigrette appetizers provided by the Vacavi Café where we met this month), and talk about the book we read, share how it affected us, explain what it meant to us, and explore our diverse experiences.

fig close upThis month’s book was chosen by our friend Laurie because it was written and self-published by a somewhat local author, Lenore Skomal, who was willing to come to our BEST BOOK CLUB EVER meeting and talk to us about her book.

And WOW – I might have to say this was the BEST Book Club of the BEST BOOK CLUB EVER!

As you may have guessed since I have begun this blog and since my profession is in Corporate Communications, I have a bit of an affinity for writing.

The topic of this book was also something that hit close to home on so many levels for me.

So the opportunity to get to meet the author, and to have her be such an amazing, engaging, REAL woman, was a surprising treat.

Heck – she is the one that officially named us “THE BEST BOOK CLUB EVER,” and even rode across the lake in Ed and Laurie’s boat with us to Rob and Joyce’s place for a night cap and continued intimate discussion.

lenore boat bc

So the book – “Bluff” by Lenore Skomal  -was born out of the author’s real-life experience with her mother’s end days’ experience of comatase in the hospital where physicians and staff spoke about her mom in her mom’s presence as if she weren’t there and couldn’t hear.  It made Lenore uncomfortable wondering how much her Mom could hear and comprehend and how it made her feel.

I was thoroughly intrigued, albeit at first taken aback, by Skomal’s representation of the book’s central character’s imprisonment in that “in-between” space teetering on death yet clinging to life in order to save the life of her unborn child – a choice made by the Catholic hospital staff where she is kept alive by medical intervention.  It was startling when I first heard Jude speak and hear what she had to say.  I will never look at or think of a person in a coma the same way and will be that much more reverent in their presence.

Bluff is quite a page-turner as each character develops and shockingly unfolds and reveals their own secrets, deceptions, and relation to the central theme.  The end will shock and startle you.  It will answer some questions, but raise that many more.  At first, it really threw me and made me think it was too much of a diversion from the original central theme, until we discussed it as a group and with the author, and I looked at the entire scope of subjects more globally – the secrets, the deceptions, the “bluffs.”  (And then to learn Part 2 is in progress where these characters continue to develop is exciting!)

Bluff was a perfect book club selection for those willing to discuss, debate, and truly delve into the most intriguing questions that plague us about the value of human life, life support, organ donation, and the ongoing debate and questions (even within the medical community) surrounding the consciousness of those in a coma.

It truly took Marty and I back to several years ago when we had the privilege of being with and loving Marty’s dear sister, Maureen, across the divide of this life to the next (or whatever we believe to be beyond this life) as we held her hands, whispered “I love you’s” and played soft soothing music.  You see, the hospice nurses caring for Maureen to told us they believed the last sense to go is that of hearing, so we made sure that with every last breath she took, Maureen heard our love.

As a “writer wannabe,” I was fascinated to speak with Lenore and learn about what it takes, the research involved in authenticating content, but most of all what drives us to want to write, how it affects us, and how it impacts those that read it.

I am grateful for the experience, recommend the book, and hope I have a new friend in Lenore Skomal.

And how ironic is it that the topic of this book is about  … Life in Between…

Cheers and Hugs,

Jodi