Blog Challenge: Lunch

If you could have lunch with anybody dead or alive, who would it be and why

This one is hard. There are some many inspiring people in history that I would love to have lunch with. I think if I had to choose, I would want to have lunch with Anzia Yezierska.

 I have always been interested in the Jewish culture and religion and I love her books. As a Jewish woman who lived from 1880-1970 I think she would have had a lot of really interesting things to say about the life of a Jewish woman before 1900 and how life changed after, and even how it is now. I read her stories about poor families subsisting on cabbage soup that is more water than cabbage and the occasional white fish or Challah loaf if they got very lucky one day.

Comparing the poor of the USA to the poor of any other time, or even a lot of countries today, makes me feel grateful for the advances in science and technology that has made food more available to everyone. 

I also feel grateful for the advances women have been able to make because of the suffragettes that have allowed women from all backgrounds to become stronger and more equal to their male counterparts. When Anzia was a young women it would have been hard to be an author and have her books taken seriously. Today I can write a book and self publish it without anyone to be able to tell me otherwise. 

I have female friends who are Jewish both culturally and religiously and they are strong empowered women and I think it would be so fun to talk to Anzia and see how she feels about the modern woman.  

Blog Challenge: Positive Childhood Memory

I am supposed to blog about a childhood memory. This is seriously a hard thing to do. My childhood wasn't a great time, but this blog post isn't for talking about the bad times, it is for talking about the good times.

One brief, happy memory had to have taken place around the 4th grade. I am not completely sure because many of my memories before the 5th grade are bad, blurry, or missing completely.

I remember I would walk home from school some days and on the way home I would detour by my great-grandpa and grandma Rose's house. I knew that if I stopped by I would get hugs from my grandpa and he would give me a treat and ask me about my day. I wasn't a very talkative child and so I would tell him my day was OK (whether or not it was or wasn't) and sit shyly on the couch eating my treat before my great-grandma yelled at me to go home. She was a very severe and strict woman from my limited memory of her, she died around this time and like I said, I don't have many memories from before this time. I knew my great-grandpa for some time after this.

Good Memories of her:
Sweet pickles and Corn relish. I haven't had any for years, but she used to can the best sweet pickles and corn relish in my memory and people would talk about these items for years after she passed away.

Good Memories of him:
Treats - He would both give me some and give me money to buy treats with
Hugs
Bingo Scratch-Its - he would buy them every week and since my mom lived with him for awhile, ever time I visited he would let me help him scratch them off and would split any winnings with me.
Western Movies and mass-market Western Paperbacks
Whiskey
Chin Whiskers - he always had these wonderful sharp little white chin whiskers and I swear he always had then the same length every day.

When Grandpa Rose died one night in his sleep, I took comfort that he didn't suffer and we mixed his ashes with his wife's and sprinkled them into the ocean off a giant bridge. I felt like we released my great-grandpa into a better place that day, to wander the world with his wife and not feel the pain of the mortal world.

I miss you Grandpa

February 28th Blog Challenge

 Ok, so I came up with the idea to do a weekly blog challenge to help keep things fresh in some of my TTGP friend's blogs and they liked it. Here is today's (I didn't come up with this one) topic!

Other than KU or have a newborn, where do you want your life to be a year from today.

By  February 28th 2014:

~I hope to have at least my CNA 1

~Hopefully I will be either accepted in to a LPN or other nursing program... or I will be well on my way to completing prerequisites in order to get into a nursing program.

~I would like to learn one new thing that isn't related to school or my job

Regarding my house:

~I want to have my back yard fixed up to have a patio and be fenced in

~I want my bathroom floor to be finished

~I would like my front yard to be fixed up with some nice shade-friendly plants... hopefully edible ones.