remember – Nancy Tart: Writing for Life

Turtles In The Kitchen

December 3, 2022

Turtles in the Kitchen

It had been one of those days. You know, when you begin to question everything, your brain shouts accusing bits at you and highlights every choice you’ve made since infancy, and your biggest challenge is to find something joyful to think on or something to be grateful for.

Jillian, Lucas, and Thea to the rescue!

“Mom! Where is Jillian?” cries Thea with a giggle.

“I’m a green turtle!” days Jillian’s muffled voice from under the green bin.

A simple little rubbermaid bin. It started life in our house about 14 or 15 years ago as a toy-bin because someone gave it to us with junk in it, a broken handle, and no top. We sanded the broken plastic and put big toys in it. At this location (smaller house, so smaller toy room and no space for it), it is our pantry dump bin; usually it contains baggies, extras that need a box like soaps, random cables, an occasional box that’s too big for the shelf, etc. Since Halloween, it had been used to set everyone’s separate candy/treat buckets inside and had been atop the refrigerator. This morning I had moved it to the floor with the intention of wiping it out and putting it back in the pantry.

Instead, it ended up being a turtle shell over Jillian!

Lucas and Thea were laughing so hard, “look, you can’t see her toes!” and “Mom! Jillian’s a turtle with a hard shell!” And Lucas banged drums on the shell.

Grandma has a red plastic bin she had just emptied that normally has decorations in it.

“Mom!” I hear a scream-yell from the kitchen.

“Look!” Yells Thea as she pulls the red bin over her head, “two turtles!”

“Two turtles!” Yells Lucas from the other, (Jillian is guiding Thea Turtle around so she doesn’t hit anything as she race-crawls around the kitchen)

I smile at so much fun from imagination and two silly plastic bins. Thank you God, for imagination! Thank you God, that you know my heart and send these little angels to make me remember that I just need simplicity to smile. My mood shifted from fighting my accusing brain to enjoying my children’s joy. He uses the simple to confound the wise. In the still small voice. All of Creation shouts His praise. A child shall lead them. All these sayings pound in my brain to drown out the accusations.

And now the turtles are a “turtle sandwich” to which one of my teenagers said, “mom, that’s something else” and giggled. (Someone has been reading their Biology book.)

Three turtles to the rescue!

Sometimes it’s a pretend turtle in the kitchen that can bring you joy! Thank you, God, for the blessings you have given us!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Dressing the Part

#DressingThePart #ChristinaCanDressUp #DressUpDays #Halloween2022 #Halloween #SillyMemories #Silliness #BeSilly #BeFun #Family #Memories #LetsMakeMemoriesTogether #CreateSillyMemories #DontLetYourFunStop #WGVGymnastics #ParentsNightOut #ChristinaHasWayTooMuchFunDressingUp

November 12, 2022

Dressing the Part

Christina likes to dress up. She turns into “Christy the Elf” after Thanksgiving and loves dressing up to our themes at work. This Halloween is the first we’ve lived in a community where people actually trick-or-treat! This made her super excited! She had Jaquline’s big speaker outside playing creepy and fun Halloween songs (some were soundtracks to different movies, others were funny like “the Monster Mash”). She had invited a bunch of friends but most had other plans and attending a friend’s Halloween “party on my driveway giving away candy” is not a valid excuse to play hooky from work.

One of her best friends showed up – in a totally amazing costume my nerdy girls loved! – and these two college girls goofed off and enjoyed giving away candy to all the trick-or-treaters. A table of glowing fun candles and cute props, two smiling young ladies handing out candy, and a bunch of spare candy bags hiding just inside the door made for hours of fun.

Christina worked our October Parents’ Night Out where the coaches are encouraged to dress up.

Before she left, she was crawling around the house “getting into the dog character” just to make all the little ones laugh. Christina knows how to make little ones laugh. Maybe that’s why she excels as a preschool coach.

Louis looked at me, “what in the Earth?” because, you know, she is nineteen. Or is she?

I love that they have the freedom to dress up and play pretend and goof off – one has to feel very confident in their own skin in order to act silly in front of others. It is amazing how my girls’ first jobs give them options to be silly. We dress up (okay, not me, but the other coaches do), we goof off with each other and our kids (yes, I goof off with the preschoolers and tots), and yet all of us are very professional about our job. We love our kiddos! We want the best for them!

I always take time to do fun kid things with my children. Thea wants to play legos (we set up the lego base boards and each gets a spot to build). Lucas wants to play boggle with Thea (yes, they both get words now, it’s almost scary – Thea won one round because she had a 3-letter that beat Lucas’ two-letter and she’s told everyone!). We spend family day(Sunday) with at least one board game like Monopoly or Risk. We do silly dance parties or sing karaoke. Sometimes we have been known to spend hours watching parakeets or guinea pigs or lizards or chickens while narrating (speaking for the poor animals).

Sometimes when you are being silly, you totally dress the part – like Christina.

Sometimes it helps to make you join in all the silliness and pretend you are a part of a world where imagination reigns. Crawling around like whatever animal you are pretending to be, making the littles squeal with joy and run from you, or pretend they are “protecting” and wrestle you; always make time for “silly” memories. When I think back, some of the most heart-warming memories with elder members of my family were the silly ones (i.e. my granny at eighty-something throwing cartwheels to teach a group of us kids how to do it, running through the sprinklers with my Daddy, “braving” the rain from a Sams Club with my mom) and then the ones I remember making with my siblings and children… twirling in the middle of a flower garden, singing silly songs on bike rides, people-watching on the bayfront, tickle wars, covering kiddos with sheets and “smashing them” while I try to fold sheets or make beds, reading stories that will never be published as they shred them apart with kid-questions, letting them “cook” stuff in Star Ocean while we fold clothes, etc. Silly stuff we remember as so much fun.

Enjoy your silly memory-making moments and don’t be scared to “dress your part” if the mood hits to be silly!

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

He Walked With God

February 25, 2020

In our church Sunday, the pastor spoke about how Enoch was one of his heroes because he was remembered as one who “Walked with God” by faith. I thought about that.

In my life, there are several people no longer here whose legacy includes: “they walked with God.”

Am I living my life so that part of my legacy will be: “She walked with God?”

What does walking with God look like right now?

My translation is that it means we communicate openly with God. We listen as well as speak when we pray. We remember to ask God’s direction in everything in life – jobs, moves, vehicles, routes for the day, etc. We have a type of open communication where we speak to God as if He were a very close friend. Don’t you have friends whose advice you seek out when making decisions? God should be primary in such things.

One of the ladies I was privileged to know once told me that she “breathed in God every morning to start her day off right.” She woke at 5am every day and had her coffee outside on her little porch or in her garden. She talked about God like He was a very close friend. All of her stories included “so after praying,” “after discussing it with God,” “well, I asked God but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear,” etc. She lived life full and open. She was far from perfect, but she wanted to be as godly a woman as she could be.

She ran her race and finished strong.

Examine your heart and see: are you in a close friendship with Jesus? Would you say that you ask His advice first? How do you interpret “walking with God?” Are there mentors or friends in your life, here or in heaven, who you would say “walked with God?”

Thousands of years after he died, Methuselah is remembered for having the longest recorded life, but Enoch, who lived about 1/3 of the standard lifespan at his time, is remembered for “Walking With God.”

What will you be remembered for?

Thank you for reading,

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Study & Playtime

August 8, 2019

Study and Playtime

Your bed.

A place of rest. Calm. Peace.

Unless you are a mom!

I got the baby all ready, got myself all ready, even get Lucas ready for his bed! Lay down and *boom* here come the troops!

Lucas does an aerial front flip onto the bed, continuing into two connected forward rolls. (I almost die each time he does that!)

“What are you doing? This isn’t the gym?”

“Going to bed with you.” Nice.

As I start getting him settled (someone must have shared a red skittle with him, as the equation for crazy energy = red food dye + sugar + Lucas), Christina comes in with her new laptop. “Mom, I need help setting up.”

So this is my bed & it’s 2300:

I’m trying to sleep, need to be up at 0545 to get Thea ready, me ready, walk dogs, and beat the bits of traffic; 0615 if I don’t care about eating breakfast or packing lunch.

I smile and remember – they won’t be little long. Soon Christina will be 16, how much longer will she even ask for my help? Lucas is 4, when will he suddenly stop coming in to snuggle? Thea is 5 months, but I can remember Christina being that little and it seems like yesterday. I take a picture as Christina gasps, “Thea! Computers are not for eating!”

Yummy! Thea tastes Christina’s brand new laptop

No, they won’t be little long. I choose to cherish every moment… even the late night Mom’s bed gatherings.

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Frogger

Memories associated with one simple game…

August 6, 2019

Frogger!

Christina is jumping up and down with excitement in front of my bedroom door as Louis, Thea, and I are laying on top of the bed after church and lunch. On Sunday, we usually talk about stuff and share a bit about each others’ week while he powernaps (how can he do that with his eyes open?) and I feed Thea.

“The Flea Market is open until 4!” Christina announces. She’s been wanting to go for a few weeks now, yet we’ve always been too busy & yesterday we built the middle girls their new bed.

So we get to the Flea Market and she zooms to the one spot we always get our games from (always… I haven’t been there in over 2 years). This guy has been in business for over 14 years – sold Becky her second PS1 and our current PS2. Christina has been slowly building a game system & game disc collection of her own. Today both Christina and Becky pull out their debit cards. (This feels weird, as my teens are buying stuff with their own debit cards with their own money!)

I’m a bit proud, a bit sad.

Proud because Christina is managing college, CAP (2^nd Lieutenant now), homeschool, work, and friends mostly on her own and doing a good job at it Proud because Becky raises sweet, lovable Guinea Pigs (Kimberly and Jillian are also partners in this venture), juggles college classes, gymnastics, and her interests well.

Sad because this additional sign of independence just shows me how quickly they are growing.

Usually Sunday is a no-tech day, but since we spent yesterday building the bed and deep cleaning, we allowed video games today.

That’s how we got home, have all 7 children on the couch watching Christina and Becky “test” the two Lego Star Wars PS2 discs, enjoying the four slushies Becky bought while I got gas. Sharing treats, laughing at the games, and enjoying each other’s company – I love this!

Then out comes Christina’s reason for going in the first place… she displays the original PS1 frogger game with a flourish and jumps up and down. “Remember this game, Becky?” And they laugh.

It’s the first game they remember Uncle Buddy playing with them when he brought in their first PS1. They played that one as a 4-player for years (with the special “L” shaped extra Christina didn’t find this trip). They played that with Aunt Mary and Aunt Stacy at the little house behind the Winn Dixie.

Christina says, “Mom, the memories attached to this game are priceless!”

I smiled. So true. I remember playing this with my brothers and sisters (the only 4-player at the time) and the crazy laughter that happened with “bees bees all sorts of bees” and “racing cars” and “the hippos and crocs” and all the other fun nicknames for the levels we had.

I’m watching now as they do another popular big family thing with fast games – pass the controller around after each “death” – taking turns and laughing…

Oh, now they’ve changed frogger’s name to “Gerald” – and keep lauging… “Off the rock, Gerald!” “Not there, Gerald!” (occasionally tossing in other lines from Finding Dory too… my crazy, fun, family!)

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

The Fallen

May 27, 2018

“The Fallen”

Sometimes art inspires me. Sometimes it’s hard to visualize large numbers. These memorials do an excellent job.

I’ve heard of the origin of Decoration Day (Memorial Day) and often thought about the hearts of the women decorating the graves of fallen soldiers during the War Between the States.

Today, I learned of a beautiful memorial done on the Normandy beach on September 21, 2013 that memorialized the enormous loss of life in the absence of peace. They called this project “The Fallen.”

Over 9,000 soldiers and civilians died on June 6^th, 1944 as part of the liberation of France during World War II.

The artists chose to etch a human-sized body into the sand of the beach for each soldier and civilian who was reported to have lost their lives during the invasion.

Hundreds of volunteers came and 9,000 sand etchings were created to show the huge loss of people. (above picture from Sand In Your Eye)

This picture from the cliff speaks volumes. (picture below from Sand In Your Eye)

This memorial lasted a few hours until the tide slowly washed it away. The image of this memorial reminds us of the human costs of war; as was quoted from Sand in Your Eye, the artists responsible, “[each figure was] a representation of a person that once lived, they had parents, family, friends… those people that lost their lives are no longer with us but on [this day] they spoke.” (quote from Sand In Your Eye)

Studying history, I understand the necessity of war to rescue people from hopeless situations of oppression, but that doesn’t lessen the sadness of loss. I thank those who serve to protect us, the families of those who perished, and those who were not trained soldiers yet fought when they were needed.

As Memorial Day approaches, I remember those who sacrificed their lives for others. If you can ever visit the memorials in Washington DC, do it; and remember that each name on a memorial is all we see of an entire life – family, friends, and dreams. It hits home when your teary-eyed ten-year-old holds her hand an inch from the reflective black marble wall and says “that could have been granddaddy’s name and then we would be missing all his children and grandchildren.”

Whether we agree with the war or not, we honor and remember each of the fallen.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Tag: remember

Turtles In The Kitchen

Like this:

He Walked With God

Like this:

Study & Playtime

Like this:

Frogger

Like this:

The Fallen

Like this:

If you liked it, please share!

Like this:

If you liked it, please share!

Like this:

If you liked it, please share!

Like this:

If you liked it, please share!

Like this:

If you liked it, please share!

Like this:

If you liked it, please share!

Like this: