Friday January 29, 2010

It has been a boring last few days. The weather is cold so I don't feel like venturing out and I really don't need to many things. I will eventually have to go out and pick up a few groceries but I am trying not too. I need to save some money so it is best to stay home. I have gone into the sewing room and straightened the room and did a few small projects but just can't seem to get into anything. I want to make a quilt as you go quilt next but have no idea what pattern to use and I want to be able to use up some scraps. I also thought about making a doll but just can't seem to get into anything. I haven't seen people in days. Carol was here last Sunday but that was the last day I saw anyone. Poor me. LOL

It has been interesting reflecting on my growing up in Hinsdale. What a great feeling to be young and not have to worry about anything. Hinsdale was a great place to grow up and things were so different in those days. A young child could go out by themselves and would only have to worry about bullies which were far and few between. To walk a mile by yourself when you are only 6 is amazing. Now you have to worry when your child is just down the block and in some neighborhood the child can't even got out and sit on the front stairs. Holidays were always so much fun. And playing in the snow and building snow forts by packing snow in a cardboard box, using it as a mold for a brick. Christmas when Mom made a full wardrobe of clothes for a doll that I found out later in years that she had put a new wig on an old doll. She even knitted a snowsuit for the doll. I was about 5 or 6 then and I remember losing some of the clothes at a friends house and she said she didn't have them and I found out she did. She didn't stay a friend long.

Under the Christmas tree would be a town with ice skaters, sledders, houses the train running around the tree. The ice skaters, sledders, etc were made out of lead in those days and so was the paint on the walls. I survived the lead!!! Yea!!!!

Our house always smelled of bakery. My Mom was a great cook and a baker. She would make tons of stuff on Saturday for the company we would be having the weekend. The house always smelled wonderful. Strudl and Hoska were made weekly.

On weekends we would go into the city (Chicago) to see Grandma Triska and sometimes Grandma Krech although we didn't see Grandma Krech that often. Grandma Triska was warm and cuddly and alway rocked the babies, me included. She had long grey hair pulled back and twisted into a bun. Her house always had wonderful smell of cooking too. We always spent Thanksgiving with her. The whole kitchen would be tables as the family was so large and I remember the dressing tasting so good. Wish mine tasted like that. I know I am using the same ingredients but never seem to get that taste. I also remember Strawberry soda. It was such a treat getting the strawberry soda. I carried out that tradition for many years but I was the only one that cared so eventually quit it.

When we were in the city visiting my grandmothers, Mom would grocery shop on 26th street. My uncle had a butcher shop so we would get out meat there. We would go out for lunch at Lurie Brothers. They had a counter in the front. I loved their mashed potatoes and gravy. Mom and sometimes Teta would always have a bohemian meal of some sort. We would stay at Grandma's what seemed to be late to me and on the way home we would always stop at White Castle for hamburgers. I would be tired but never too tired to go in and get some burgers. Yummy!!!