Remember when…

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We always think of the past as the good old days, but were they?

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How did we not slam our heads into the windshield on a daily basis in the 60’s and 70’s?

I grew up riding in the front seat of a 1962 Ford Falcon station wagon.

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And yes, my mother still had it after my husband I got married…. when we were dressed head to toe in stonewashed denim. ( In our defense… it was the 80’s. Denim ruled. 🤣)

It had vacuum wipers, a manual choke, the dimmer switch on the floor…. and no seat belts.

But mothers must have had quicker reaction times and more serious arm strength back then because mine drove me in and out of New Jersey and NYC with my cranium still intact. Impressive feat of parenting, that.

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To this day I don’t know the first names of my parents friends from back then. I was trotted out to shake hands with guests upon their arrival and taught to say how do you do Mr. and Mrs. Whoever before disappearing to my room never to be seen or heard from again. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to interrupt adults. Nope. Never.

Very different from today’s parenting where the world seems to revolve around a five year old’s desires.

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Ain’t that the truth? Run nonstop all day and fight going to sleep at night. Now I can’t get up off the couch without creaking and as soon as it gets dark? My pajamas are calling.

Maybe they were the good old days after all….

😉

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Random nonsense.

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This first one is slightly exaggerated, but not by much.

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And by the looks of things in the backyard?

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I think there are baby woodchucks in our future.

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Remember the days of mixed tapes?

I stumbled across a few of my old ones and had a flashback of sitting on the floor by the stereo manically timing the recording sessions.

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Some of the songs are questionable, (Richard Marx? 😳) but I’ll stand by the Fleetwood Mac and Neil Young.

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A lesson I learned early in childhood that still holds true today.

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Worst. Coffee. Advertisement.

Ever.

🥴

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Project part three… in which I find a yellow submarine.

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Because he loves me.

Or maybe because he doesn’t want to hear me bitch…

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My husband rented a deck sander for a few hours and went to town on the barn porch.

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In the rain.

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Granted it wasn’t the best weather for sanding, but I wasn’t going to complain.

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He thought it might make a difference and help the boards he replaced blend a little better with the existing planks.

It didn’t, but it certainly smoothed things out and prepared the surface for sealant.

I admit I was a little surprised to walk inside the barn and find a previously unknown dining table being used as a work top.

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Clearly someone had been to the recycle center without me.

🥴

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I also found this.

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Shame it was in such bad shape.

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A 1969 Yellow Submarine, complete with pop up Beatles.

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Ringo.

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And a very unhappy John.

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Atlas shrugged. And so will you….

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I call foul on this first one.

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Half the state of Maine does not call them blinky butts. Trust me on this.

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Why doesn’t this surprise me?

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A lot of these have me scratching my head, but Turkey?

Wow.

🤣

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Cheese beat lobster.

But just barely.

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That’s a question I’ve never asked.

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Nope. Not buying it.

People move to Maine for the isolation, we don’t complain about it.

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Don’t forget the filters!

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It’s going to be hot in Maine today and tomorrow.

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Weirdly out of season hot as you can see when our temps drop back to normal on Thursday. And even though it will only be two days of humid high temps, I talked my husband into installing our window air conditioning units this morning because yours truly has hot flashes… and a hot flashing wife is a cranky wife and a cranky wife doesn’t cook. If my guy wants a hot meal? He needs a cooled spouse.

Anyway, as we struggled to seat them …. I swear they get heavier every year!…. I looked through the grate and realized I hadn’t cleaned the filters.

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Apparently for quite some time.

😳

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Holy Hell!

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The amount of dirt, dust, pollen, fuzz balls, cat hair, spider webs, skin cells, fish scales or whatever else the hell that is… was disgusting.

How the machines managed to work with that amount of clogged air intake last year I don’t know. But they’ll be breathing a sigh of relief this summer.

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So remember …

Clean your filters!

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The project, and a woodchuck kleptomaniac.

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The barn porch rotted wood replacement project continues.

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Or rather, it continued without me noticing and is now complete.

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(Yes, the left hand post still dips… but that’s a frost heaving, ever shifting Maine ground problem.)

And while my husband used similarly weathered boards…

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They still don’t match the existing and stick out like a sore thumb because he refused to replace the entire length of the boards like I suggested.

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This anomaly doesn’t bother my husband, but will drive me nuts for years to come.

And did you happen to notice anything else amiss on the porch?

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Perhaps the furniture that I had recovered a few years back at a rather large expense?

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A cushion is missing.

As in… gone.

We noticed the other chair cushion had been torn, or more precisely… chewed. And there was stuffing blowing here and there around the bottom of the barn so as crazy as it sounds, we think it was stolen.

By the critters.

Most likely the by Momma chuck who nests and has babies under there every year.

Ordinarily this would piss me off to no end, but I’ve been wanting to replace this set for some time so now seems as good a time as any.

😊

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News you can’t use.

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Always useless, sometimes chuckle worthy.

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Best. Name. For a space potato.

Ever.

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I may be old school but I still use mine. No notifications, no algorithms picking your playlist.

Look at me, I’m trendy.

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Is everyone talking about this?

I was blissfully unaware.

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Tiny butts rule.

What else is new?

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I don’t know about dinosaur tombstones, but lots of organized crime members are currently decomposing under and around the Meadowlands.

😉

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Were the beans unhappy and organizing a coup?

And if so, why wasn’t I told.

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Do you remember ….

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Let’s take a walk back in time to my childhood.

I’m a tail end boomer and remember every one of these questionable gastronomic delights. My mother didn’t allow them in our house because she was determined her only child would eat healthy food. Which is one of the reasons I enjoyed spending time at my friends, whose parents weren’t nearly as vigilant.

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A taco shaped artificially flavored banana sponge cake with overly sugared cream filling. A heavenly treat for my 7 year old self.

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Cheese in a can! This was the height of cool when I was young. The fact I’m still alive after consuming it all those years ago is a testament to its high level of preservatives.

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Required lunch box dessert when I was growing up.

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The pungent aroma hit you as you walked past Spencer’s gifts and Sam Goody’s… half a mile away. And it was guaranteed someone in your family would receive a gift box filled with inedible sausage for Christmas.

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My parents never ate a frozen dinner in their life but when they went to the city for the evening and I had a babysitter? Swanson fried chicken with that horrible little apple cobbler was my consolation for having to stay home .

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I remember eating the vanilla version of these when I was a teenager. God only knows what they were made of. We questioned nothing back then.

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And finally, the only product I might still eat today. I remember them being quite tasty.

Do any of these items bring back nostalgic food memories for you?

And if not, what were some of your favorite childhood horrors?

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