Who You Calling Big Nose, Big Nose!

This morning instead of doing my writing therapy I figured I would start my weekly domesticated chores. While I was doing these chores some memories started flowing in my head.

For those that are not familiar the title I put on this post it is a line from the Monty Python Movie, "The Life Of Brian".

Jennifer had anything but a big nose. She had a cute little nose. However, I would often tease her how that little nose could stick itself into so many places it did not belong.

Jennifer and I had not been married long and we went to a Christmas party with my family. Now my mom, my sisters and Jennifer were sitting at this party, and they noticed the hosts had a nice collection of spoons in a fancy display rack hanging on a wall. These were those tourist spoons you buy when you are visiting a famous place. We have a whole bag of them. Some we inherited from my grandmother, and some are ones that Jennifer and I collected over the years of our traveling.

Anyway, the rack that the spoons at this party were displayed in was a nice ornate one and they were discussing it and Jennifer said it had nice velvet on it. My sister told Jennifer she thought it was dust and Jennifer said Oh no its velvet. So, to verify her position, she stood up and walked over to the rack and ran her finger across the rack and guess what? It was not velvet. Now she was horrified that she did this and my mom and sisters said the look on her face was priceless and they broke out laughing hysterically. Now this rack had a dust free finger swipe so everyone at the party now knew it was not velvet. So, they quickly relocated themselves somewhere away from the spoons. But the story of the velvet spoon rack never fails to bring a good laugh when our family is together, and it comes up. Jennifer would still blush when that story was told.

Needless to say, our spoons never went on a rack after that, we did not want them to get velvety.

Jennifer always sold herself short on her creativity and he artistic abilities. She could be pretty creative when she wanted to be. One thing she liked doing was coloring so for years we had kids coloring books and crayons and every once in a while, she would break them out and color away. Of course, I would tease her about it, but she did not care. Her nieces actually had sent her a care package that unfortunately arrived the day she passed that had a set of colored markers and a coloring book of Motivation, Puns and Cursing. Thanks Kate and Hannah she would have loved it. I think Uncle Joe is going to honor her and them by coloring a few of these myself. I assure you that they will not be as pretty as she would have made them, but I will do my best. I will share photos when I finish one.

The first year we had moved away from home to Louisiana, we could not come home for Christmas, because we did not have any vacation time yet. In those days, you had to work a full year before you were eligible for vacation, we started work in April. So, that year Jennifer decided she was going to take up needlepoint. She bought this little needlepoint kit with a cute little Christmas scene, and she started working on it. Well, she did not get very far on it the first year. She found out it was a little harder than she thought it would be, but she got some done. At the end of the Christmas holiday, it got packed up. Every year for years after it would resurface when we broke out the Christmas decorations and each year, she would add a couple of more stitches to it. If my memory serves me correct, there was a little girl with braids in the scene (which was a big reason she chose it) and I think she had almost finished the girls' braids but here we are some 30+ years later and that thing never got close to being finished.

To be honest I don't if that needlepoint kit made the last move or not. It may have gotten donated to Goodwill for some other artistic soul to take on. But it will be a memory I will cherish if I do come across it in our stuff someday. Who knows maybe the old laptop is with it!

During Covid Jennifer took up sewing. She made us a bunch of masks and pretty much everyone in the families got an apron. She enjoyed sewing those and got pretty good at making them.

We both did a lot of jigsaw puzzles in 2020. It was a good way to pass the time. We would put on music and would work away at our puzzles.

Well I have a mop that is calling my name and a kitchen floor that is well past needing a bath. So enough therapy for today.