The Love Of Camping For 20 Years

Sierra's 1st camping trip - taking her into the lake for her first lake swim.

Me and my brothers in front of the lean-to. Mike is on the left he is the youngest, and Nick is the one on the right he is the middle child. Most people don't realize I'm the oldest.

That's uncle Mike with Sierra and his dog. Sierra loves dogs.

This is a preview of our vacation that's coming up next week. Every year for the last 20 years I've gone camping with my family at Lake Groton, Vermont in the "Northeast Kingdom". It is a long beautiful glacial lake that's 3/4 of a mile wide and 6 miles long. At one end is Owl's Head, Big Deer and Little Deer Mountains. At the other end Lake Groton empties into Rickers Pond and further down the valley. The lush Green Mountains surround it on on all sides aside from the lower valley to the south which flows into the Waits River. Most nights the call of the Common Loon can be heard throughout the campground as they stride the lake waters. We also love feeding the ducks that regularly visit the lakefront sites.

Picture Post: The Littler Mermaid

Why do the good ones always go early?

With the passing of George Carlin this week, my note to Sparkle Plenty inspired me to think about other early leavings. Not those who died, but good friends I've worked with that left the job much earlier than anticipated.

First there was Jimmy Shimmy from the meat department. I gave him that name because of a dance he always did, the Jimmy Shimmy. He left so long ago it's hard to remember the specifics but he always made working with him so much more enjoyable. He transferred to another store.

Then there was Jamie, another meat department guy. I had very good memories of him. In our store while we were away from our loved ones, we would always joke about having a [name of store] boyfriend/husband or girlfriend/wife. Jamie was mine and it was always good for a laugh. We pretended Sierra was our child and he would ask me how our baby is doing. He also transferred to another store.

After that the store manager Mike left. He and I got along so well we had a special bond. When I came to my fifth year anniversary, he called a big huddle with the whole store. He gave me flowers, a cake, a nice card, and my five year pin. I really appreciate him now because the current store manager does everything by the book and doesn't call huddles that much anymore and really isn't fun to work for anymore.

Next was Nancy, my loving department manager. She was like a mother to me. I even bore a resemblance to her so people often thought I was her daughter. She said when she was in school, her photo looked almost exactly as I did then. We are still close today even though she doesn't work there anymore.

Fourth was June, who was first an assistant manager to Nancy. Then when Nancy transferred to the bakery, June stepped up and filled her managerial shoes. We were like sisters, I could tell her anything. She would let me slack off in her office with her just a bit and I would give her backrubs. She would ask me to bring up some papers from seafood and she would have me hang out with her in her office for like an hour sometimes. If someone called up to her on the phone, June would tell the other person I was busy and continue the conversation or whatever we were doing. June moved across country to Wyoming to be back with her family.

Then Chuck left. Another meat department guy (I don't know what it is about them). He took over where Jamie left off. We gave each other the biggest bear hugs and I always put a smile on his face. Now he floats from store to store filling in at different meat departments.

Last there was the brat of the deli, Barb. We called each other that, she was a sweetheart and always made working on the weekends fun. She was always laughing and smiling. We would pretend the bathroom was her office and everytime she had a weird senior moment, she would say "I'm on my beach". Sadly, she is leaving to go work at the hospital starting on Thursday.

Mother of the Bride's Worst Nightmare

You do the math.

Have a nice weekend!

The Deli Family

I've been working in the same supermarket deli for 8 years now. I first started out as a bagger but was quickly transferred to the deli after 5 months because the paper bags would irritate the skin on my hands and arms severely. After one year, I met Redbeard there. He had just moved to Vermont and he was a part-time night person and I was an almost-full-time day person. Every so often our hours would overlap, and we met and worked side by side. One day when he was coming into work and I was returning from a break, I caught him at the stairs and told him I had a confession to make. I told him me and my friend M thought he was cute. He was stunned and didn't know what to say, but he played along and our friendship grew.

Shortly after, at the end of M's shift, he asked her out to a movie. Initially she said yes, and she left. 10 minutes later she called back and said she couldn't go on the date, something about her parents (she was 19 at the time and living at home with very protective parents).

The very next day, which was a Monday, he came into the store in the middle of the day on his lunch break to buy some salads. He got a seafood salad and a ham salad, and he also got my number. My mouth dropped to the ground like dammmnnnnn.... M came in later that day for her shift and I told her about Redbeard (back in those days, he didn't have a goatee) and she got extremely upset and said that's my man and called all sorts of nasty names.

I got home later that afternoon, and he wasn't working the deli that night, so he called me. We talked for about an hour, and I enticed him over to my place (still 22 and living at home with my dad) with a big screen tv, a hot tub, and playstation 2. We hit it off immediately and that first night we had some fun, after being friends for a couple of weeks. It wasn't much later that I made a man out of him. He quit a couple of months later because of M and her sorry attitude, but no biggie, we were moving in together soon.

Just over a year later, he asked me to marry him on Christmas morning 2002 in front of my mother, after we had opened up all our presents. It was then that he said "Santa Claus isn't done, he has one more present for you." He turned around to face me, took something out of his pocket, got down on his knee and asked me to marry him! He was so nervous he almost forgot to kneel, I halfway said "aren't you forgetting something?" We were married in May 2004.




Sierra came along 2 years later. Now I just work weekends and stay at home during Redbeard's work week and weekends are Sierra's daddy time.

Now every time we take Sierra shopping with us at my store, it literally takes at least an hour because everyone wants to stop us and talk to us and see Sierra. They ask the same questions over and over: "Are you back to work again?" "You off today?" "How old is Sierra now?" "She's getting so big, I can't believe she's two already!" It really makes us crazy and it takes all our strength to restrain from rolling our eyes. So, we cheat on our store and go shopping the next town over so it doesn't take five years to do the shopping!

So that's how we became "The Deli Family."

Here's the Story of a Lovely Lady...

Before we get too far into blogging, I want to give you some background on me. Not really my life story, but a little about why I do the things I do. Just so you know, my man Redbeard is doing the typing and transcription of notes and ideas from paper to the blog.

I was born with ADD (Attention Deficiency Disorder). Because of it I had to take Ritalin for 7 years and got off of it my junior year of high school. My parents did not know what to do with me so they left it to the Special Ed teachers. I also have a learning disability. When I got to middle school, I also had a stutter for all 4 years that I eventually grew out of but I still do it occasionally. The most embarrassing part was if you missed a time to take your medication, the nurses paged you over the PA or came to your class.

I was able to take normal classes with the help of an aide, so I wasn't stuck in the Special Ed room all day, only for study hall. I was higher functioning than most of the kids in special ed, but moreso in high school. But I've always had a problem reading and spelling. I could read and spell small things, but wasn't very good at it until my sophomore year in high school. What helped me most was reading Robert Frost short stories. Even though I had a disability, the kids didn't pick on me, only for my stuttering. It also helped that I had two popular brothers who always stuck up for me and were always there for me. What really got me far in life and in school was staying positive and being friendly toward everyone. Because of this, in middle school I won the Friendship Award.

I owe my life to a special teacher Mrs. Roy for all she's ever done for me for 7 years. She helped me to read, get better grades, she always made me feel good about myself, and always told me she wishes more students would be more positive like me. I'm sorry to say she's not teaching anymore due to illness. I'd like to dedicate this post to Mrs. Roy.

I'd like to say thank you to my lovely husband [Redbeard] and Sierra for all they have done for me. Thanks to them my ADD is under control, I feel more normal now more than I've ever felt in my life.

A New Beginning

You wanna hear a good story or have a good laugh? Sorry, you're going to have to wait until later for that. This is my first post after all.

What I will say is that I'm a married part time supermarket worker and a full time mom of one gorgeous 2 year old. Here I'll be sharing with you my family, talk about friends, and my gripes about work.

To start, here's a video of my girl Sierra. She loves to dance.