Crafts & Toys

Hi hi,

It’s me again your happy childhood memories blogger, as we venture back into this gracious second living room, this time it as my playroom. This was the only room that I was allowed to get dirty, well besides the wall otherwise. I call it my playroom due to the fact that most of the toys were mines. The only thing that I could have remembered that really belonged to my big sis was her Lego set which I can recall she rarely built. Probably if she ever really built anything of significance is when she first got it though she was good at it. I never could have built anything like her, so I suck to my own stuff. I was good with the blocks, yea the small wooden blocks with the symbols signs numbers and letters on them which could never have stayed in one place.

Approximately around the age of five I introduce to my first jigsaw puzzle, it was a 24 piece (approximately 40”x36”) which came in a lookalike lunch box with a red plastic handle. I loved that puzzle as I built it repeated and used it as a mat while I played with my other toys. I never did get the picture on the puzzle. There was a female skunk sweeping out a shack, while a pig was washing the window, there was a rabbit attempt to patch a hole in a hay roof before the storm cloud came, while the mouse was cob webbing in their little corner; there was an owl in the tree either watching the weird man washing or the other animal that living in the hay roof. I was a crazy puzzle which I happened to keep until the age of 24 but being the nice aunt that I am decided to past it on to my niece. Well that was the end of that puzzle and a lesson well learned for me.

Moving on to my of fun childhood toys, there was the big ass doll, I don’t know where they got it from but she was the talk of my tongue. Funny enough I don’t call if I ever name her but she came with the hair comb that I loved and would nag my mother to comb my hair the same way. I threw a fit if she wasn’t where I left or anyone touched her, she came with a lily white frill dress with a yellow satin ribbon J. Then came the time when we had to part, year after year they try to convince me but it never worked I think she was too big to go missing. It was only around my pre-teen they took a stand and said she had to go and I was too big to be playing with dolls. Sad moments there L.  

Good times, good times, then there were my marble collection, the faithful ones that you could never lose with that took you through you hard times.  Oh and there was the “big uncey” that you would gamble almost all of you marbles just to get one, while the snake eye was some of us prize processions. If you had lost all your marbles you would beg a friend for one to win back yours or pray it fell out the winners’ pocket while they were running. Good old pitch as we play three man hole in the dirt. The hole was made with your finger and spite if you didn’t have water nearby or the water was taking too long to come.

The good ole toys that shaped me, of course you can’t for the toys that you would always get in trouble for, the noise makes.  The balls, the various types of water toys, those that would always make the knocking sound or end up in the neighbor’s yard. How I could I forget the toys that dirty the carpet and the walls. Why? Here is the thing, they send you to Sunday School and Vacation bible school where you learned to make some cool crafts but when you got home you can make it or practice making it. What the sense? Basically we had to make sure we finish our crafts before coming home. I remember one time when I made a basket out of the empty toilet paper role, but I never used it in public only to store things at home. As me now if I can make a single craft I certainly cannot.

What’s your childhood toy and craft memory?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/avi7/

Books

Hi

It’s your fellow childhood blogger here again as we take another walk down memory lane. As I am challenged every week to bring you something new, it reminded me of things we took for granted growing up. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I grew up in a relatively a full semi crazy house. Basically it was a do as I say and don’t question it.

As I watch my nieces on their days home where the television would go on sometimes as early as 6:30am, which is utter madness in my mind.  Of course I would tell them to take it off due to my upbringing, we weren’t allow to have the television on so early far more to even have it on all day. You would hear the famous words, “yuh sending up the electricity bill, yuh does pay any bill hear.” Good old days!

On morning’s it was to do whatever little chores that it had to do, like sweep, mop and do the dishes. There was nothing like get up and put on the television to keep you quiet in the morning so you won’t bother your mother. It was go brush your teeth and organize yourself and make sure your bed was made before fully getting off and once off stay off. Its’ only now I could laugh at those days.

I am not too sure if the is luck but growing up we had a playroom basically a second living room. I would say more me had a playroom because it was mostly my toys.  This gracious was a three in one room, it was the second living room originally, study room and my playroom. Now in this room of there was of course a wood couch set with brown casing, a table & chair set for studying, the ironing board, the telephone, the vacuum, my toys and last but not least the bookshelf.

As we weren’t a television structure generation, we had books which were passed on from generation to generations. Basically hand me downs. Interestingly enough there wasn’t a shortage of any and even the neighbor would dump theirs on us.  Sadly I was not the one you would have always seen reading a good book that was my sister. But when I did I would always seem to get into trouble. Why? I had the tendency to get caught up and forget about everything else. Why is it I could have never won? Do right I would get into trouble, don’t do anything I would get into trouble and do something well we all know how that went.

Any hew there was one book I can remember in particular that I loved that miraculously disappeared. Back then they were making books with the cassette that read with you and for you. It   became my obsession, if I am not mistake it was call The Snow Queen, am not too sure what I was obsessed with but I was. I searched, rearranged, stripped but still could not have found it and when I enquire about it no one seem to knew what I was talking about. The feeling of insanity hit me at an early age, as I would make reference to the tape and had to play it back to jog their memory which felt like a lost cause.

I grieved and grieved until they started buying replacements which was never the same though, as years after I still had hope it would turn up somewhere, but it never did. After that, my next favourite became one of those books with the popular stories, but it was a compilation of the regular stories with a twist.  The Sleeping beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Snow white, the Hansel and Gretel and so on. Considerably I wasn’t satisfied, as my old brother and sisters books always intrigue me, but I all I would hear was those books weren’t for your level. Knowing me I was always made sure that the books were within my eyes sight until I was of age. Especially knowing that is was there favourite, my brother’s was a Robinson Crusoe and my sister at the time was a Tom Sawyer. There were several others that I did in enjoyed as I kept my favourties favourites in my bedroom, but apart from the bookshelf collections there was a separate bedroom collection. Yes a bedroom collection, this collection consisted of pray books. Little pray books for children, when I wasn’t of the age to read it they read it to me until I was of age. Gradually I used them as short versions of saying my prays when I did not feel like praying.  I really did enjoy those pray books as I find myself reciting parts of what I vaguely remember still to date.

What’s your favourite childhood book memory? https://www.flickr.com/photos/avi7/

Great Aunt Dominga

http://youtu.be/-WZETjFaIx4

Little did I see of her growing up as a child as I would only hear stories so I believed she was just another myth. Sometimes I would think it was just us growing but the stories always kept coming though it wasn’t positive ones. I was still curious to know this other side of my family as the story intrigued me despite the negativity. There must have be some good in there somewhere as I needed to know. How? The first time I can recall meeting her I was amazed. I said to myself, “this is what the other side of the family looks like.” So many questions I wanted to ask, so many things I needed to learn but how? My mom would not permit me, basically I could only sit there and wonder. 

 

On the left Aunty Mano and on the right Aunty Minga

As I grew I was determine to learn but never figured out how as I remembered her occasional outburst in patois frightened me. When I would inquire where she lived no one never knew. As for daddy his promise to carry us for drives to know our entire family, well, I am still waiting for that to come through. 

It’s amazing the great history we lost as the gaps in our family tree are never past on or even taught.

What childhood memory do you cling too?  

Dear Diary

Pen to paper, paper to pen I am sorry it came to an end.

In my early years in growing up, it wasn’t known to me as a family tradition that anyone in my female blood line kept/ wrote a journal or a dear diary. Wow! As I approached my early pre-teens it was a popular talked about thing among my peers. Finally I convinced myself to have a go at it though I did not have the store bought ones at the time. This being a new concept to me, where you wrote down everything that happened to you during the day; I was completely stunned what to write because in my mind, in my life nothing adventurous happens. 

Before it could even hit the ground running, the dear diary idea came to a squash. With not even half of my diary written up, I stalled, apart from having nothing to write about, it was too time consuming. Not that it was only just time consuming, when it was bedtime in my house it was bedtime. There were no ifs, buts’ maybe or negotiation, worse yet to hear it was to write that nonsense. Luckily, I had lovely a sister to make things worse, of course out of fastness and knowing that she could not get to read what I wrote she would sell me out of pure meanness. 

Well, if there was any privacy in our room then, there was none now. Thanks Sis!

Courtesy my caring sister, that was the end of phase one of attempting to have a dear diary. As I matured, I felt the need to started writing again as I attempted the second time around to have a dear diary. 

 This time around I had evolved a bit and that particular sister was too caught up in her own little world to even be bothered with mines. With that in mind, I decided instead of having the obvious dear diary book, I started using scrap books and tearing out the pages just encase she started nosing around again. That lasted for a while, as I folded them and blended it among past school copy books though I still had to make sure that my nosey sister wasn’t nosing around. 

Eventually I became fed up of way I had to do things and the attics I had to go through. Finding ways to write in various codes were mind blowing and tedious. Gradually my writing became less and less, then my writing only were about bad days where I would write about the event/s and how I felt. Then it became about things my mother and I would argue about, but I mostly noted the negative things that she said and noted the date. This new trend of mines came about due to the famous statements, “I never said that,” yes that famous statement. Of course being the lovely daughter that I am, I would give her a gentle reminder as to which context it was said in and what the disagreement was about. Obviously I did not give her the exact whole scenario but bit and pieces of it to jog her memory. It would have been chaos if she only knew that I still kept a version of a dear diary. 

Funny enough I did enjoy the writing, and expressing one thought’s. Probably if they did allow me too, I would have been better off in expressing myself in my writing rather that suppressing it. 

Who know I probably could have written my first novel by now.

That’s the end of that, what’s your story?

Weekends/Marina chores experiences

It’s the weekend again, chores to be done, lunch to be cook and what’s for dinner still to be decided. Yeah right, that was way back when, not now a days, chores are done whenever lunch is definitely not cooking and dinner don’t exist.   As I hunger for the days gone by minus the weekend chores the moments cherish as I wish it was only yesterday. As I watched my sister supervised my nieces do their occasional chores, it reminded me of us growing up but just without the direct supervision. It was chores first, then breakfast, the shower with shampooing of our hair, probably a little cartoon providing we finish on time to see any, then homework if there was an excess that wasn’t done on the Friday. As for lunch, the Saturday lunch was seasonal as they change after a long period of time. In my early years as far back as I can remember it was soup Saturday’s then there was macaroni & cheese Saturday’s and when it was my turn to learn how to cook there was the corn beef & rice Saturday’s. Ooo and sometimes I did it with potatoesJ. To think nowadays I can’t stand the smell of corn beef furthermore to actually eat it. Yuk!

One of the best parts of the weekends’ was the Saturday night dinner. Yum yum, yum! I could smell it right now, the Saturday night dinner, beef pies, the arepas, hot dog rolls and mummy’s favourite pastry, the caramel curl just to name a few. She would have normally made at least two but nothing less than a dozen of each. Unlike when it came to pizza night she would make four big pizzas, which could never seem be enough. Or did she just to give the majority away, am not sure. Sigh! The pleasure of Saturday evening’s dinner, each time there was something different to look forward too. The joy and thrills of being a kid in my house, when she wasn’t  making dinner at home, she would be making it at baking classes bringing it home for us.

A part from the thrills of food on the Saturday’s that was the one time we were allowed to stay up kind of late. Yip, so that would be our movie night as we prep some of the things for Sunday lunch the next day. Sigh! Night chores! It was either a case of take it or leave it; we didn’t have any bargaining options there.  Ahh, Sunday lunch, but before we could get to Sunday lunch we had to go to Sunday school with the neighbor. Yep good old Sunday school, it became religious as at first it was a sometime thing. As my sister got older she was introduce to a Pentecostal church but I can’t remember by whom but I had to go there too. So gradually I was going Sunday school in two places but it got better, a neighbor around the corner started having afternoon Sunday school. Yip! Sunday school three times on a Sunday wow! At least I did get to enjoy the Sunday meals before running off again, I think. When we did arrive back home, we had a few hours literally before organizing for school the next day because after the news it was bed time 7:30/8:00pm sharp. That rounds off our typical weekend growing up providing we didn’t have to go out, yeah that just made it worst, same routine with less time.

What your weekends were like growing up as a child?

Going out the Saturday evening

After Saturday morning chores

One of many Saturday's night dinner

Sunday lunch

Going to church with the neighbors 

Going to church with big sis

What's yours?

Marina's Chores experiences 

I remember my first cut which and I panic when I saw the blood. I had lot of challenges where I at some point I would burn food. For instance, I burnt, rice, red beans and I would find it taste good. However, my mom and aunt would guide me along the way of what I did wrong. I remembered continuous practice I use to do in the kitchen such as chopping vegetables and meat. I always watched cooking shows to help me. Wendy Rahamut “Caribbean Flavours”, I use to enjoy that show. Take notes and try to make the dishes. I use to get talks from my parents because I would make a mess. At some point my grandfather punished me for leaving a cloth near the fire and it was burning. He banded me from the kitchen for a week which I was vexed. I never had gotten so unsettled to cook in the kitchen. That was how passionate I was.

I remembered the pressure I went through and wanted to give up on cooking and art. At some point in my life I did stop at the age of 14 years until I kept hearing the words of my grandfather don’t give up. Then I started pushing myself to accomplish in learning more in cooking and art.

Every day I could see the scar on my foot reminding me of the time I was helping my mom making roti and the hot oil fell on my right foot. Coco butter has removed it. I remember burin my middle finger in hot oil, I was helping my mother fry pies and I just lose my focus by gazing. I just felt a heat in my hand and when caught myself, I was burning my hand I the hot oil.  How clumsy was I. I did get ‘the talk’ from my mom. My finger swollen big and red. I learnt to always focus in the while cooking. My scars which fade away now but they have made me realize the progress I made in the kitchen.  It is through trial and error, I learnt.

My advice to people who do not know how to cook and want to start or just do not like to cook, understand cooking is an  art and you can b creative I many different ways. Another advice, to learn and cook there are alt of trials and errors, cuts and burns just like my childhood memories but just PRACTICE.   

Printed memories

Pictures pictures pictures

Once again I was sent on another hunt by this gracious aunt of mines. This time it was for pictures. Yes pictures those lovely childhood photos. Unfortunately they were not in any order and I had to skim through all of them to find exactly what she requested. As I looked through them I couldn't help but only to smile. As I remembered, year after year we look at the same albums as more pictures were added and the damage ones thrown away. There was always some kind of contention who would get to turn the pages and tell the stories. Mind you, there was always a different version each time the same story was told by someone else. So what I would do during our seasonal cleaning, is hide them or put them in a place where only I would know where to access them. Of course, I would get into trouble when the time came but I didn’t mind. It was worth it, “the keeper of the memories” but that didn't saddle too well with my siblings.

 In looking through the family albums, I remember growing up, there were always tons of people in the albums you would not have known. Interestingly enough, when I would asked who are they, I would always get,” doh bother meh,” I don’t know and you don’t have nothing to do? I guess my timing was off because I could never seemed to get an identifiable answer. Oh and the times when I did get answers, they never sure who is who. One can imagine my frustrations!