Mortimer's Mom

Retro Friday: Childhood memories

So Glenys' Mama tagged me for a Childhood Memories Meme, and it's Friday, so let's roll it all into one:

1) skiing. We skied all  the time. Every weekend. Every winter vacation. We lived on the hill. I just crossed the street and skied down. We skied at a very small center, so I don't remember needing to ski with anyone. We were allowed to roam free, go to our morning lessons and then tire ourselves out all afternoon. This was before people were afraid of kidnappers, obviously, and everyone there knew who I was. I'm either 3 and a half in this picture, so that would made it my 3rd winter skiing.....

2) Camping and B-Day presents.  My birthday is in July, so school was out. My mom made great parties, but most of the kids from school were gone and didn't come. But my God-Father always gave me a very special sport-related B-day present (he owns a sporting good store). 1974, I got this rocking terry green hoody with matching bikini (the top was striped like the pocket). And then we went camping to Virginia Beach, which I always thought was *MY* beach. I didn't LOVE camping, but I loved the family vacations. And we used to see deer outside the tent.

3) Sailing. My Uncle and Aunt had a fairly good-sized sail boat on Champlain Lake. And we would go a couple of times per summer to sail with them. I LOVED it. The scruffy looking guy is my dad. The 70s..... My aunt's glasses would fetch a pretty penny today.  My dad has 2 brothers  and 2 sisters (this one is my god-father) and as the oldest in my family, I was always pretty special to all my uncles and aunts, but somehow, my 2 uncles always made me feel extra special. I remember almost every present they ever gave me, from a transistor radio to a pair of cross country skies.

4) the country house. My dad's family lived *up north*, in ski country. So we went every Friday afternoon and came back every Sunday night. As a teenager, I came to resent this, because I missed out on the regular high school social scene, but as a kid, it was awesome.

We lived on a huge hill (the ski hill) and in the summer, the deserted ski slopes were ours to roam. And we went sailing in little tiny bathtub sailboats in the frigid waters of the lake and boys stuck tadpole in my bathing suit, which I HATED. But we were outside, all the time.

And we had fun. With my brother, and later my cousins. We just hung on the swings and had fun.

5) my family. OK, I don't actually remember my baptism. but here are my mom and dad, with my godparents. This is in a church. Mom, could your dress have been any shorter? And my dad, without a beard. I have no recollection of my father without a beard. I believe he stopped shaving right after I was born. I am so very lucky to have such a fabulous family. My brother and I weren't very close as teenagers, he was so introverted and so wasn't, but we had a great childhood. We had parents that stayed married, which was unheard of. I use to say to people he was the son of my mother's husband, just to sound interesting to all the kids from divorced families.

I'm going to leave you with a bonus picture, of my mother and I just days after my birth. All my life, people have told me I look equally like my mom and my dad. But I just showed hubs this picture of my mother and he was confused. He just didn't understand when this picture of me was taken. I know it's hard to understand for those of you who have only seen me through pictures on this blog, but trust me when I tell you: spitting image. In looks, and I hope, in drive and determination.

Retro Friday: I once was a boy

Really, can I say anything that will make this less embarassing??? I'm not sure, I guess I was 14 or 15, I REALLY like C Thomas Howell and apparently got his haircut. I'm opening a holiday present of Bazooka Joe Earings..... yes, nothing goes with a sexually ambiguous haircut like bubble gum earrings....

Retro Friday: cuteness and cake

After the last two weeks of utterly embarrassing pictures, I wanted to go for cuteness, so I present to you my 2nd Birthday. As you can see, I get my cake-making obsession from my mother, who probably got the idea for this bear cake form Women's Day or some other "ladie's" magazine of the day. I remember her reading them when I was little, and when we were older, we were allowed to pick the cake we wanted.

That table, that is now my outside table at the cottage. The one I refinished last summer.

Retro Friday: 1986 Schmorgesborg

Let's analyse, shall we?

Belinda Carlisle one-piece striped cotton short/shirt one-piece with collar. (made by my mother and I. Really, why did no one stop us????)

Madonna-inspired hair, a-la Like a Virgin, but with a shoe lace bow instead of an entire scarf.

Micheal Jackson Glove earing. Only one, because he only wore one glove. Who knows what I had on the other ear.....

Really, what can I say...... I was an absolute mess!

Retro Friday: Prom

Really, what can I say?

It's a peach and white seersucker puff-ball skirt, puff-ball sleeve dress with a mad-large bow in the back. I do believe we used a wedding gown pattern to make it (I made it with my mom, again, we shouldn't have been allowed near a sewing machine!)

My hair was crimped! And I decided to wear my corsage on my head!

My date was the same guy as last week's pic, a skiing friend who wore burgundy high-tops that matched his bow-tie and cummerbund. He got drunk on free punch and puke all over them. Then my anarchist friend with the green Mohawk bought his shoes for 5$ and we called his parents to come get him....

Retro Friday: Pink & Polka Dots

Let me set the scene..... Prom Night, 1986. In Canada, we don't really have prom, we have Grad, and in Quebec it's at 16 years old. This wasn't my prom, it was my friend's prom, a full year before mine. I am 15, and we agreed to go to each other's proms because we were to shy to ask people on dates!

Behold, the pink! And the polka dots! My mother and I made that dress. some sort of cotton. There was a blue cummerbund belt, but I took it off before getting to the dance. I'm probably wearing it in the pictures my parents took at my house before hand.

Check out the hot pink nylons and cheap fake leather bright blue shoes! I totally had a Molly Ringwald/Pretty in Pink Fantasy going on.

The funniest thing, is this is the 80's version of the same hair cut I just got!!!!!

If I can find it and scan it, next week, I'll show you the crimped poodle look I went for the next year for my own Grad.... let's just say the dress was crimped too!

Retro Friday: the hippie year

Grade 6.  Flowy skirt and long stringy hair. I apparently had some cool dance moves....

Retro Friday: the awkward years

I have absolutely no idea how old I am in that picture. Maybe 14 or 15. I was not cool in high school. I was the wanna-be. Always just one month behind the trends, one accessory behind the times.

I'm pretty sure the corduroy newsboy cap was at least one season off, though apparently, I was a good 15 years early on the long sleeves under short sleeves trend!

Retro Friday

Because I'm a lemming, but a slow lemming, I'm only jumping on this Retro Friday Bandwagon now that it's been going for a while.... mostly it's because I don't have a lot of the pictures of my childhood, those are still in albums and on the walls of my parent's house, and the ones I do have aren't dated, which make writing witty banter very difficult.

But I do have a few that were scanned for our wedding video, so let's start with those, shall we, and I promise to do better next week.

the story goes that this is the picture of me on my first ski day ever, at 18 months. My family was big time into skiing, with my uncle owning a ski-school (still does to this day) and my parents both being instructors. So I had to get on skis pronto so my mother could get back to work.  I've heard stories of boots and skis being imported from Europe on one of my uncle's trips, because north Americans weren't putting 18 month bolds on skis in 1971! But my uncle pioneered and went on to build a successful ski-school specializing in teaching kids 2-4. 

Check out the fashionable yellow belted vinyl ski jacket, accessories with hand-knit synthetic cone-head and strangle-danger scarf. Years later, ski centers banned scarves because kids were getting tangled in the lifts, but I somehow survived!

Here I am, probably at 12 or 13, as an assistant ski instructor. I started officially teaching at 14, in a pink bunny outfit. but that picture will have to wait!