Tag: BUGS

Like my Dad

~ Spence's Girl ~ 10 Comments

I never knew of Buster until last year. We lost my Dad a few years ago just shy of his eightieth birthday. I was visiting my step-mom at the home they shared in Traverse City last summer when she said “I have something I think you’d like”. I was intrigued, feeling it was something that belonged to Dad. Knowing that I’m majorly sentimental, she produced a stuffed woolen dog.  “This is Buster and he belonged to your Dad”.  Buster had seen better days, one leg appeared a bit wobbly but he was adorable. I was touched both by having him but also by having a new nugget of knowledge about my Dad. The fact that at 59 I still have my “Baby Teddy” imagine my surprise that throughout his life, Dad preserved and kept Buster.

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Buster riding “shotgun” on the drive back home.
Buster now resides in the same room as my Baby Teddy. But it’s different for him, a homecoming. You see, I live in the house that my grandparents built when Dad was a young boy and though Buster hadn’t lived here for a long time, it was once his home many years ago.

I’ve been told many times “you’re a lot like your Dad” and through Buster I see a glimpse of his childhood and know that even our youthful selves were aligned.

I know how happy it made my Dad that I love living in his childhood home and feel certain he’s smiling now, knowing that Buster’s returned here to live with me.

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Happy Father’s Day Dad! I miss you every day.

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As part of the Blogging University Grads (BUGS) bi-weekly challenge, our prompt is a tribute to Dad.  I did a post earlier this year based on my trusty childhood teddy bear.  Apparently this lifelong attachment to a childhood stuffed animal was something my Dad and I had in common.

To read the story of Baby Teddy, follow this link:

Baby Teddy – One Good Bear

Ten Things about Me

~ Spence's Girl ~ 8 Comments

This is the first writing challenge from BUGS (Blogging U Grads) and the challenge is to simply introduce myself by sharing ten things about me.  Considering that I’ve shared quite a bit about myself in the last seven months, the challenge for me is to come up with things previously not revealed……

  1. I’m left-handed.  Proud of it and believe that my creativity springs from my left-handedness.
  2. Though my husband and I are the only human occupants of my home (my two sons are cats – just to clarify), my pantries (yes plural), refrigerator, freezer, spice and wine racks might lead one to believe that I’m secretly running a personal chef service, opening a gourmet food shop or preparing for the zombie apocalypse.
  3. I have extremely flat feet.
  4. I love The Gilmore Girls!  Have the whole series on DVD, watch it beginning to end once a year.  It makes me happy.
  5. My first job was as a cashier in a donut shop.  Yes, I was a donut slinger, at age 16.  Couldn’t eat donuts for many years after I left that job.
  6. I live in the same home that my grandparents built, where my Dad was raised, in the same neighborhood I grew up in.
  7. All my life I’ve been told I looked like both Grandmothers and my Dad.
  8. My hair is naturally very curly, like Shirley Temple curly.
  9. I am of 100% Swedish descent (to the best of our family knowledge).
  10. I didn’t learn to text until I was 57 years old.

Tada! I did it. And I’m quite sure that I’ve not previously shared these captivating facts about myself on this blog.

So, that’s me.  Nice to meet you.

Just a bonus thing about me! And because it's hard for me to make a blog entry without a picture.
Just a bonus thing about me! And because it’s hard for me to make a blog entry without a picture.

BUGS is a writing group that was formed by those participants in the Blogging University Writing 101 workshop from earlier this year.  This is the first of bi-weekly challenges they will assign us through year end.  I hope you’ll find them interesting.