Grandma Bos, The Mob Boss

The next woman I'm writing about is my Grandma Bos, the toughest woman I've ever known.  She died at 92, but only after a car accident.  Grandma was just too sturdy and resilient to go of old age.  She made it through the Great Depression, World War II, and raising three sons and a daughter.  Her husband died when my mom was a little girl, leaving her with the kids and a large farm.
Grandma Bos was the kind of woman who always told the truth, whether you were expecting (or wanting) it or not.  For example, about a year before the accident we were moving her out of the condo she had lived in since I was a little girl.  I was packing up some of her old dishes when she said to me, "You can keep those.  Consider them a wedding gift.  I want to be dead by then."  She thought things like that were funny!  We were playing with Barbies once and she asked me why Ken's pants closed in the back instead of the front.   As an elementary school girl, I was stumped.
Don't get me wrong, she wasn't a cranky old woman, she was just an honest one.
Grandma Bos was extremely talented when it came to quilt making.  My sisters, my mom, and I each have a Grandma Bos quilt on our beds.  It's one of those keepsakes we each protect with our lives.  Those questions about what you would grab in a house fire?  We would each grab our Grandma Bos quilts.
She was an extreme baseball fan, especially when it came to the Detroit Tigers.  In memory of her my family goes to a baseball game every year, where my older cousin Adam boomingly hollars for the Tigers each time.  It's a bit nerve-racking, considering none of us would be very useful in a fight.  Adam is tall and lanky, and the rest of us are girls.
From her I get my viscousness in board games.  There was no mercy when playing games against that woman.  She's smash you into the ground and then laugh in your face.  It didn't matter I was six with cute pigtails.  I remember once when I was little my mom found out that my grandma had been driving to play cards with other women late into the night.  The funny part was that her excuse for not going to church on Sunday mornings because she didn't like to drive.  I'm like this when it comes to certain board games.  Monopoly is one of those.  The mere mention of Monopoly and everyone will ignore me for the next two hours, sneers on their faces.  Sore losers, if you ask me.
Thinking about Grandma Bos in heaven makes me smile every time.  It's crazy thinking that she's back with the husband she lost so long ago and my Uncle Gary, who passed away when I was in middle school.  I'm sure she's busy making the best applesauce for them and quilting for Jesus.

Momma Sprik

In regards to Breast Cancer Month, I'm going to spend a few posts this October writing about a few of the sensational women I'm lucky enough to have surrounding me.  The obvious place to start, and the only person I could dream to begin with, is my beautiful mother.
If you get my mom and I in the right mood, you'll see exactly where much of my personality comes from.  It's a perfectly balanced relationship.  We can sit and talk for hours about issues or problems in our life, or we can laugh so hard our toes hurt.
Yes, it's possible.  And yes, it's happened.
The family dog, Son, is the only man in my mom's house.  Does his name make sense now?  When all the daughters are home, any poor bystander is innocently crushed by the exceedingly rising level of noise coming from the four of us.  We don't eat out often because of this.
When we get into these situations, where we all talk at one and Son hides because his poor ears can't handle that many decibels, we tend to think that extremely irrational things are a good idea.  It's like a gang of drunks trying to skydive.  Except we're sober.
The perfect example: Two days before Nick and my wedding, I still hadn't gotten my eyebrows waxed.  Money was tight.  And by tight I mean nonexistent.  My mom thought it would be a brilliant idea to wax my eyebrows herself.  Here's problemo numero uno: careless waxing leads to missing eyebrows.  You don't accidentally pluck off someone's eyebrow.  As she warms up the waxing kit we both have a few glasses of wine.  The second bad idea.  I may have had a glass of wine for my nerves and the pain to come, but my mother probably should not have.  As the time comes, I'm sitting on the toilet seat anxious.  My mom is stirring the wax giggling.  The five or so people at the house are crammed into the doorway, each with the kind of smile you see on people's faces when watching "America's Dumbest Criminals".  Mom goops the wax on my face, smashes the strip on top of that, and then turns around to giggle at everyone watching.  She then violently whips back and rips it off.  My mom's way of waxing: whip and rip.  As I'm screaming on the floor, everyone else is laughing on the floor.
Needless to say, we plucked the rest.
In all seriousness, my mom has taught me many important parts of being a woman.  Strength and forgiveness in times of great despair.  How to laugh at the good and bad in life, but that it's still ok to cry every so often.  She's implanted in me the importance of honor within your friendships, such as keeping their secrets and being there when they need you, not just expecting them to be there for you.  I know that when I'm at the lowest place of a valley the only place to look is up, and if you just keep walking you'll get there.
My mom is truly my best friend.  I cannot explain to you how lucky I am to have such a relationship with her.  I tell her everything, which may get on my husbands nerves.  Emily, my younger sister, and I had a conversation recently about this fact, and we both agreed that we hope to connect with our own daughters in the same way someday.
So thank you mom, for being the kind of woman that they write about in books.  The kind of mom that has my back through everything.  The kind I inspire to be someday.

I Love Lucy

My sensitive husband recently brought to my attention that I tend to make fun of him a little too often on my blog.  My personal opinion is that in his little secret world he's the king.  So when I bring up certain topics or stories where he is in fact NOT the king, he is forced to step off his porcelain throne.  To make him cry a little less tonight, I've decided to wholly dedicate this post to making fun of myself.
I'm the first person to admit my own faults.  That's where we'll start...all the things I'm bad at.
I can't snap my fingers. (do ya step, you can do it all by yourself, let me see you do it...sorry lil' jon.)  When it does happen, which is infrequent and less than exciting, it is only on my right hand and under very precise conditions.  My fingers cannot be sweaty, sticky, or too dry.  The sun has to be out and the wind blowing in the eastward direction.  On the note of making unusual noises with your body, (which my husband is GREAT at) I also cannot whistle.  When I try it's high-pitched and spit goes everywhere. I'm like the llama in the zoo everyone is scared to get too close to.
As my husband points out, I'm extremely impatient when it comes to stop signs.  I like to roll with it. I didn't realize until he pointed it out that I also go out of turn on a regular basis.  It makes me wonder how many times I've been flipped off in the last six years.
About this time of year my legs go into 'winter-mode'.  A lot of you women already know what I'm referring to.  It's as if they hibernate, no one sees them for about four months.  This obviously means there is absolutely no reason for me to shave them more than once every 6-8 weeks.  My husband has vowed to love me through sickness and health, so how would a little hairy leg syndrome change that?  Plus, I have to put up with his...oh wait, this isn't about him.
And then there's my cooking.  Watching me cook is like watching the Kardashians.  You just can't believe it could get any worse, and then it does.  And yet you just don't stop watching.  I'm not very good at bartending either.  Part of the problem is that I didn't drink until I was 21, so I missed years of experience others have. (I never regret not drinking, just FYI.)  When I do drink now, it's a few specific drinks.  I can whip you up about eight different margaritas, but I've never heard of anything called a Zombie.  And I always thought Pina Colada were just some goofy words in a song.
Flamenco dancing should also be put on the list, considering it requires a large amount of coordination.  That's why I ran cross country in high school.  Just one foot in front of the other, something I'd been doing my whole life.  No worries about anyone through balls at my face.
This isn't one I have ever tried before, but I'm pretty sure I would be bad at an eating disorder.  First, I love food way too much.  Give up ice cream?  I'll still eat it if it expired a week ago.  Of course, in our house, ice cream never lasts longer than a day and half.  Plus, puking grosses me out.
The amazing thing is that even though I'm pretty sour at all of these things, my husband loves me anyways.  He still kisses me before he leaves for work.  He'll still cuddle at night, whether it's his kind of cuddling or mine.  He's never stopped taking me out on a date.
So I guess my point is that even though I may rag on him every so often, he's still my fuzzy wuzzy.  Nothing will ever change that, not even his...oh crap.  There I go again.