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I had one of those dreams last night with all of my dead in it. It was in my Nana's old house that we all basically grew up in. The house that was always my home away from home. The house that was always filled with love, where I spent so many waking hours. 

The dream was set sometime after my Pawpaw had died, but my Mom and Nana were there. My Aunt and Uncle and their spouses were there too, as well as my Daddy. My Momma, and her sister and brother were heatedly discussing what to sell to get the most money for my Nana. There was no detail as to why she needed money, although I assume it was because my grandfather had died or she was very sick. My Nana wasn't paying attention to the very opinionated discussion, she was smiling and as happy as a lark having her three babies home under one roof. 

My Nana was a wife and a mother first and foremost, and what she prided herself on being. Her family was the single most important thing in her life.

 I remember some details that were out of place, that did not belong. My Nana was sick. Although not the kind of sick she died from. A different sick, that made her bloated and puffy. The landlord had ripped out all of the bricks in the fireplace after 45 years, and there was an attached condo on the other side of the fireplace. My grandparents owned their home. There was no condo on the other side of the fireplace, but the outside corner of the house, that had a small foliage pathway leading around from the driveway and back door. Even with the odd differences, it was my Nana's house.

It was a lovely dream. It felt like home. I was home. I miss my Mom. I miss my  Nana. My dream took me back to a place that is forever lost to me in the here and now, except for in my memories. 

My oldest daughter, Sisse the Eldest, always used to say she missed home, even though she didn't know where that was. She was always searching for someplace that felt like home to her. My husband and her mother divorced before she was one, and lived with Daddy from the age of four. 

Only now do I understand what she was searching for, for all the years of her childhood. I tried to be a fun, safe place, full of love for her, but I could never be her 'home.'

It was such a nice, odd, lovely, remembrance of that which I have been so fortunate to have been blessed with in this life.  And that I will miss in the here and now forever. I was blessed to go home again, if only for a dream. 

http://youtu.be/_Hz7Jf0OYUQ  

My Dream Pumpkin

Ever since I was little, in the fall, my parents took my brother and I to pick out pumpkins for carving.  It was a yearly Halloween ritual for our family.  Like a lot of families, we each got to choose a pumpkin.  There were rules to choosing our pumpkins.  It had to be the right size for carving.  Not too big and not too small. You wanted to pick out a pumpkin with a smooth face for carving, but tall enough for a face. Every year I dreamed of getting a giant, perfectly round monstrosity of a pumpkin.  My dream pumpkin would have no flaws, be round and perfectly symmetrical, and the most beautiful shade of orange you have ever seen!  Each year I longingly looked for my perfect dream pumpkin, while picking out a smaller version for carving. I kept my pumpkin dreams to myself. One day, once I had found my soul mate, had a daughter, or three, had a house with a porch for a big 'ol pumpkin, I would have my dream pumpkin!

I grew up.  I then picked out more medium-ish pumpkins for my annual single girls Halloween party, year after year.  I still secretly longed for my great big, fat pumpkin, even though I subconsciously relegated myself to never having  my dream pumpkin. I admired them from afar, those big, fat, orange, round beauties that I secretly wished I was lucky enough to possess. One day I vowed, I would have my dream pumpkin! I kept telling myself that when I was married, settled down, and had a family...then I would have my dream pumpkin.  Every year on the front porch of our home, our giant pumpkin would be proudly displayed. One day!

So I settled down, found my soul mate, got married, joined our families and the pumpkin hunting tradition was revived for Sissy the Eldest and Mr. T.  We picked out pumpkins for carving every year, and I found myself reciting the same rule as my parents before me, 'Not too big, not too small!" My pumpkin dreams got pushed to the side once again, although this time in exchange for affordable family pumpkin memories. Big punkins' are 'spensive y'all!

When we had Lil Punkin Doo, again we picked out pumpkins for carving each year, and the same size restrictions were in place.  Seeing the sheer joy on all of our kids faces, from a simple, fun, family activity like picking out their own pumpkins and carving them is priceless! Hearing them scream when pumpkin guts touch their little hands is also priceless by the way! Just in case you were wondering!

This past weekend, we took Lil Punkin Doo to Gritt's Fun Farm in WV for the day.  They have slides, corn pits, tractor rides, corn maizes, photo ops, hay bale climbing, and a big glorious pick your own pumpkin patch.  At the end of the day at Gritt's, it was time to pick our pumpkins.  My LPD picked a tall long faced pumpkin, and just like that, I turned around and there it was.  The pumpkin of my dreams.  She was fat, the perfect shade of orange, the exact size and dimensions I had always dreamed of! She was perfectly symmetrical, and had a big, thick stalk on the top.  Beautiful.  I suggested her to LPD and she said no, that she wanted a tall pumpkin.  So after we found her perfect vision of a pumpkin, I turned to Hubbie the Dearest and asked if I could have my dream pumpkin.  He said yes! I told him it was my dream pumpkin, and he said yes!!! So while I was soaking in the fact that I was about to score my dream pumpkin, happy as the day HTD proposed, he advised me I had better hurry up and get it, because there was another family looking at the pumpkins right beside my pumpkin!

 I left LPD with HTD, and practically ran back to my pumpkin.  The little family was picking up the pumpkin beside mine.  Pschew! I thought I had lost her! Before they had a chance to try and steal her from me, I bent over and grabbed ahold of her thick glorious stem, and lifted her.  And thud.  Back down to the ground she went.  My baby is heavier than I had imagined.  So I reached down, put a little back into it, and lifted her with both arms into our wagon. Wow.  Funny how I never imagined my dream pumpkin ever weighing more than a normal sized pumpkin!

So HTD went to get the car, and I stood in line and pulled the wagon with LPD, and our two dream pumpkins to the wash and weigh station.  I lugged my beauty onto the scale at the weigh station, and it turns out she weighed 31.7 pounds.  LPD's weighed 17.2.  49 pounds o' punkin, plus my kid, plus the wagon.  My forearms are going to be killing me tomorrow was all the negative I could think, in my pumpkin finding, elated state. I am now the proud owner of my perfect pumpkin.  After lugging our 50 pounds of pumpkins around the pumpkin patch and into our car, I was exhausted. But I had my dream pumpkin.

We waited until the next day to clean out and carve our pumpkins.  Lil Punkin Doo drew her face, and I carved it into her pumpkin.  She then decided that she was going to draw the face for my pumpkin too.  I was happy to let her draw the face for my dream pumpkin.  I proudly drew it on and carved it out.  It may look like a many eyed, stop sign nosed, scary toothed face or a tutorial in shapes, but I am so very proud to have my daughter(my creation) create the face for my dream pumpkin, that I am close to bursting with  happiness.  And it now sits proudly displayed on my front porch, right beside hers, just like I always dreamed.  Totally worth the hours of carving and achy back, shoulders, and arms!

It is a good thing to hold onto your dreams, no matter how big or small, no matter how long it takes, because soul mates, families, daughters, dream pumpkins, and dreams really do come true!

Happy Halloween Snappers! 

 

 

 

My Dreams

Hiya Snappers! It has been awhile! I have been super crazy busy! Even busier than before when I ignored you! Forgive me?  Will you still love me? Promise? Wink!

I have been my charitable, loving, giving self, and been helping several individuals make some really big things happen in their lives, been busy cleaning three houses, had some awesome play dates, library time, more play dates, and EVEN MORE play dates, kid, grown up, grandmother, family and otherwise! Pschew! I need a vacation! Or to sit down for an hour straight! Hah! Not!

So today I am inspired by a fellow blogger, dreams, and my dream of crazy abstractness from last night! I was trolling through FB last night before bed, after the family was asleep.  I came upon a bloggy buddies most recent post!  So, after reading, I soon fell asleep.  Which is I am assuming what prompted my crazy a$% dream. So this one is for you Miss Sarah! Go check her out at The Sadder But Wiser Girl .

So in the dream, I was living in a big house, a la The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.   My family slept upstairs in the attic.  There was another family living in the attic with us.  You  know how in dreams, there is a familiar place, with familiar aspects, but everything is different somehow Surreal?  Well the attic was ginormous! But our families king size beds were only three feet away from each other.  The dream was in a clear but hazy arrested state of reality.  A subconscious nod to Flowers In the Attic, from my Junior High days? Maybe The Diary of Anne Frank? Who knows! First of all, I have never lived in a house where the attic was habitable, and second, I have never co-habituated  with another full family of 4.  Odd. The day progressed with all of us fully dressed in old fashioned, white, church clothes, just hanging out in the attic.  Then there was the sad part.  For some odd reason, the other family was leaving the house,  moving out.  It seemed like we were oddly happy all living together, but then suddenly they had to leave.  They did not take their things, but their leaving had a feel of permanence to it.

The strangest part is that it was a blogging buddy that I have gotten to know, but never met.  She and her family were the other family in the dream.  No one spoke in the dream either.  Not one single word was uttered.  There was no noise whatsoever.  I feel a deep sadness as I watch them get into an old 1940's car and drive off.  Her family didn't really have discernible faces, but I knew who they were. I watched out the window as they drove away, and remember feeling such a deep sadness.

So what do I take from this weird random abstract dream? That I haven't written in a while, my creativity has been stifled, and that because I haven't written in awhile, that I will lose all of my lil 'Snappers, including friends.  Maybe? Maybe it because of the recent loss of close but not so close family members? Maybe it's from helping a dear friend move recently, after a life changing event. Who knows.  I will take a random abstract dream any day, over one of those dreams that comes true.

 Anyone else have those but me, the dreams that come true? The dreams that are in such vivid detail, that you could swear  that they were real?  Then six months later, after the dream is long forgotten, the events play out exactly like in your dream and you are left with an uneasy sense of deja' vu.  Then it hits you, you dreamed that this exact scenario was going to happen, only you dreamed it six months to a year, or several years ago? Yeah, I have those dreams.  They can really weird you out! Not very often anymore, but yeah I have them. Wait...Everybody doesn't have those? I stopped having them so frequently when I started paying excruciating detail to them.  Just like that they stopped. Maybe your subconscious cannot be too self aware of self fulfilling or self prophesizing dreams? Who knows!

Then there are the dreams about those closest to you dying.  The ones that leave you crying, and in such physical pain that they wake you.  You are sobbing so hard that it has woken you from a deep sleep, to find that your pillow is soaking wet, and your face is covered in tears.  These are the kind of dreams that allow you to remember every single detail. Mine two worst ones were of losing my mother and my grandmother. I have been through losing my mother, and it was every bit as bad as I dreamed and worse.  I cannot remember if I dreamed the exact scenario years in advance or not, I was too caught up in the grief of the moment and the things that had to be done, to even contemplate.  As I am writing this, I do wonder though. Did all those many recurring nightmares I had of losing my mother, actually  foreshadow her death? I don't know. I have had several of losing my Nana as well.  Again such pain and sorrow, I woke up sobbing my eyes out.  Is this just life's little way of reminding us that the inevitable will one day happen, not to get to comfortable? To appreciate every second of every day we have with our loved ones? I know I called my loved ones after those dreams.  And I did hold them closer, and I did cherish every single second. Well played my psyche, well played.

I also remember having this one recurring dream for years.  I cannot quite grasp the details of it now, but I remember that I couldn't quite reach something.  It was always the same.  I went through the exact motions of the last dream, and I am always chasing someone or something.  I always end up not quite being able to reach the person or thing that I am chasing.  This dream too seems all too real when I am in it.  Sometimes I wake up remembering exactly what happened, but most times, it all becomes a little fuzzy upon waking.  I tried to remember, and the harder I tried, the faster it slips away.

There are the random dreams that make no sense, and then there is the one dream I keep trying to re-create.  The most awesome dream I have ever had.  I will not go into too many details, as it is private, but I just have to tell you about the dream that blew my mind!  I did not even know that this kind of dream could happen to females! What happened in this dream between me and my husband was all too real.  I was awoken by the power of my orgasm from this dream! I had a wet dream! Let me tell you, I totally identified with teenage boys on this one.  I woke up shaking, and immediately looked over at my husband, to see if he was being ornery in my sleep, and he was snoring! I was still as a mouse while I processed what had just happened to me. It was so erotic and I felt incredibly sexy. As in the I'm Too Sexy song! I wondered if I could do it again!!! When he woke up, I told him about what had happened.  He thought it was awesome! I was totally impressed with my bad a$% self, and was stoked for my body and mind to do this again! Wowza! Alas I am still waiting! I guess the stars and my libido had aligned at exactly the right moment in the universe, and POW! I socked it to myself, and how!  Favorite. Dream. Ever!