Day 14~ 31 Day Challenge

Day 14. 31 Day Challenge

Your earliest memory.

That’s kind of hard, I mean we are talking 30 years ago.

I remember spending lots of time with my Grandma and Grandpa Austin.

I will write about being with them.

I remember as a kid, I thought they were so rich. They had a “huge” house and they always had food on the table. PLUS our family owned and lived in the 2 houses next door. So there was always someone around to play with. When I was little the “little” house used to scare the hell out of me. The kitchen was too small. LOL!

Plus Grandma would buy me little trinkets here and there. I mean I was her favorite. HAHA!

I was so fascinated with everything around their house growing up. They had a milk shoot that I would use as a dungeon or jail for my Star Wars action figures. Behind Grandmas organ was a fake plant like island. I would pretend my Star Wars figures were in Endor (I am a HUGE Star Wars fan). In the great room there was a Christmas tree that my Grandpa painted all white and it had all kinds of ornaments on it, it was up all year round. You may think that is weird, but my Grandpa was an artist. (Almost all of us are creative people). He could make anything art or beautiful. He could paint, draw, sculpt and so on. Below the Christmas tree was a table made of marble and beer cans from the 40’s and 50’s. The table now, would sell for over $5,000 dollars. I also loved playing in the kitchen. My grandpa made the cabinets Lazy Susans, so even though they were cabinets, they had drawers behind the doors. I would clank, make noise, make a mess and it never bothered Grandma. You were lucky if you went into the junk drawer and were able to get a full deck of cards. Grandma still played even though they miss matched and I didn’t know what I was doing.

I remember Christmas there too. All my siblings, cousins, parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Everyone was there. You would have thought that we were the richest family in the world. Little did we know as kids, that we were not that wealthy. Just creative. The adults would wrap a lot of the presents in newspaper or the funnies. I thought it was the coolest thing. We would have a big dinner in the evening. Food everywhere. It was all fun and games till my Aunt Evie tried to MURDER me. Yep, My Mom told me so. You’re probably thinking OMG! Are you serious? The answer in NO, I probably ate too much and the last thing I ate was Jello that my Aunt Evie made. My Mom told me as I was throwing up that Aunt Evie poisoned me. Till this day, I still razz her about it.

My parents separated when I was 5 years old. When it was time for our Dad to pick us up for his weekend, he would 99% of the time drop us off at our Grandparents. I didn’t care, I would have rather be with my Mema and Papa. We would play games, or swing from the weeping willows in the front yard, “fish” in the ditch, Mema would make me “My Muffins” or I would go to Aunt Evie and Uncle Larry's house and play with my cousin Dustin. Dustin is my now little BIG cousin (He’s damn near 7 ft tall). Aunt Evie would let us build blanket forts in the living room. Dustin and I would play Movie Theatre. Aunt Evie would give me a flash light and I would put the light on the pages of a book and read to Dustin. We thought it was cool. I would also go to my cousin Violets. Her, Rosie and I would play barbies and play on the teeter totter. Which is still there. I have a certain nickname for Violet, but I wont say it. I want to though. LOL!

Another thing I loved about going to Grandma’s house was after our baths she would pull out her powder box (It was peach colored and I thought it was so fancy) and she would powder us from head to toe. I thought it was glamorous, like She-ra. Then we would get in our pjs. I would fall asleep on the long shag rug in the living room, watching TV.

Oh how time flies, Even though we didn’t grow up rich or have everything we wished for. We had family. Family that accepted and loved us for who we are, not what we were. We may not see eachother as much as we would like too, but I think of them often with happiness in my heart. Happy memories and LOVE.

Nichni, Nicky, Nicholas AUSTIN xoxo