Dear Reader,
My name is Tammy and I am not a writer. I am sure you are already wondering how can that be, you have this lovely e-portfolio? I am 34 years old and a single mom. I have recently started going to college and have never thought of myself as a writer.
I was born in Everett and raised here by my parents who are still married. I have two brothers and one sister. All three are married; I on the other hand am not. I have a 13-year-old daughter and live in Marysville. I had moved back to Snohomish County last year after my sister had twins. Our families bought a duplex and live next door to each other. I am very happy with my life, except my job.
I decided if I want the job of my dreams I better get a degree so I can get it. So I am going back to school to get my degree and show my daughter at any age you can get whatever you want.
When I started my English class I was not sure if I was going to make it or not. I understand verb, nouns and prepositional phrases. But write a paper, not me is all I could think. Over the course of this class I have learned that not only can I do it, but also I like to do it.
I have picked pieces of my work that show how far I have come from the beginning when I wasn’t sure what I was doing towards the end of our class showing how much I have learned, from fragments to comma splices to complete sentences and conjunctions.
Three months ago my name was Tammy and I was not a writer, today my name is the same but I am a writer.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
My New Life
I was nervous on my first day in college classes. I could not sleep the night before so I was extremely tired. It was a bad start already, when I got to the school I could not find parking, making my palms start to sweat. Then I realized I didn't know where all my classes were even located. My heart staqrted to race out of my chest. I was starting to sweat everywhere, my forehead looked like Niagra Falls all of the sudden I could not hear anything but the poundfing of my heart. Thump thump. Then I noticed my stomach started to churn. As I started to think Ibetter find a bathroom I saw the door to my first class. I took a deep breath wiped my forehead adn said a small prayer. Opened the door and began my new life.
The Messy, Messy Car
mud hanging from the rims, caked on dirt on the doors, bugs smeared across the windshield. Someone had written please wash me across the trunk. on the floor of the front seat there was so much dirt and debris from outside you can not tell if it has carpet or any flooring at all. the backseat was worse than the city dump. Empty food containers and bags from Arby's and Wendy's too. there also seemed to be some kind of sticky mess on the door handle that a bio-hazard team would not torch. the odor fo decay and mold was accompanied by a sweet strawberry smell form the lone sad tree hanging from the rearview mirror.
My Secret Childhood Place
As a child the old treehouse was the best hiding place. It had these dfark knots in the base that I used as a ladder to climb into its high limbs. The treehouse had no door but an opening just big enough to squeeze into. There were no windows just three solid walls the ceiling was the branches themselves lush and green in the summer. During the summer you could be part of the family Robinson or just read the comic books that my mom did not like me to read. My sister was not strong enough to climb the tree, she would stand at the base screaming up at me but never be able to actually see me hiding there. Laying on the floor I could peak down through the doorway of the aged wood and see if she was still there. I never was sure when she would give up and go get mom.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The Best Slumber Party
When growing up birthday parties and slumber parties were the most memorable of my childhood. The planning of the party was my favorite part, the invitations, the decorating, the schedule, I even liked the clean up. And let me tell you, I can teach anyone to throw the most amazing 12 year old slumber party in the world.
The First step is the theme of the party, once you have decided what theme to go with most of the other steps fall into place rather easy. If it is a birthday party that generally is the most simple one. You can do several other options, for boys maybe a monster truck theme, for girls a princess party. After you have picked the theme of the party you are ready to invite other children.
When making your invitations you want to make sure to include the theme, for example the last party I threw was for a musically inclined child. She wanted everything musical for this party. So for the invites we cut out 100 musical notes and wrote in glitter on the front you are invited and inside when, where and what the children were going to expect such as music extravaganza. “Bring your favorite CD.” The inside said. You want to make sure to send your invites out at least 2 weeks before the party to give families plenty of time to plan and for you to decide how the children are coming and going from the party.
Your next step will be to get decorations, it is very important to get the child’s impute on this as it is their party, my best suggestion is to have them draw up their idea. It does two things, makes them feel very much a part of the planning and second it gets the ideas flowing. It does not mean you have to get a three tier chocolate fountain but making the party theirs is very important.
Once you have the decorations and invites are out you get to decide on food, if it is overnight you need dinner, snacks and breakfast for the children. I suggest easy finger foods for all three meals so you don’t have a bunch of dishes to do and also so they aren’t making a mess all over the house with food. Also make sure to get theme conducing plates.
The last thing and probably the most important thing is goodie bags for the children. In the example of a music themed party, little bags or boxes with music notes on it is a plus. I also suggest to have plenty of music related gifts, usually the whole bag should be less than 15 dollars for each child.
If you can stick to this plan you will have several happy little kids all excited about slumber parties at your house until they are grown.
The First step is the theme of the party, once you have decided what theme to go with most of the other steps fall into place rather easy. If it is a birthday party that generally is the most simple one. You can do several other options, for boys maybe a monster truck theme, for girls a princess party. After you have picked the theme of the party you are ready to invite other children.
When making your invitations you want to make sure to include the theme, for example the last party I threw was for a musically inclined child. She wanted everything musical for this party. So for the invites we cut out 100 musical notes and wrote in glitter on the front you are invited and inside when, where and what the children were going to expect such as music extravaganza. “Bring your favorite CD.” The inside said. You want to make sure to send your invites out at least 2 weeks before the party to give families plenty of time to plan and for you to decide how the children are coming and going from the party.
Your next step will be to get decorations, it is very important to get the child’s impute on this as it is their party, my best suggestion is to have them draw up their idea. It does two things, makes them feel very much a part of the planning and second it gets the ideas flowing. It does not mean you have to get a three tier chocolate fountain but making the party theirs is very important.
Once you have the decorations and invites are out you get to decide on food, if it is overnight you need dinner, snacks and breakfast for the children. I suggest easy finger foods for all three meals so you don’t have a bunch of dishes to do and also so they aren’t making a mess all over the house with food. Also make sure to get theme conducing plates.
The last thing and probably the most important thing is goodie bags for the children. In the example of a music themed party, little bags or boxes with music notes on it is a plus. I also suggest to have plenty of music related gifts, usually the whole bag should be less than 15 dollars for each child.
If you can stick to this plan you will have several happy little kids all excited about slumber parties at your house until they are grown.
New Traditions
Growing up, every year a week before Christmas, I would spend a whole weekend with my Grandma baking. As you become an adult, you make your own family traditions. Sometimes how they come about is the surprising thing. My Grandma and I would go shopping on Friday night for all the ingredients for cookies, brownies, cakes all of the family’s favorite desserts. I would spend all day Saturday and Sunday baking everything under the sun, including old family traditions and new stuff that my aunt loved or my uncle found that he just had to have. Once my father became a diabetic we also started experimenting with how to make some of the treats with less sugar, no sugar or Splenda. I remember every year and all the memories that we made. I moved to Vancouver Washington for five years, but I always made sure that I was at her house the weekend before Christmas. We would spend that time laughing and baking like I was never gone. My Grandma passed away this last December. I decided I would make cookies a few short weeks after without her.
“What am I thinking?” I thought to myself. “I can’t bake Christmas cookies without her.”
I decided that I would start the same way we always did. I took Grandma’s cookie recipes and made a shopping list. As with most women of my grandma’s age, they change recipes or figure that adding this later in the recipe or, adding a pinch more of that changes the cookie, but makes it better or her own.
“Oh yeah,” she would say, “I found two pinches of powdered sugar does the trick.”
It was never written on any of her recipes, as she copied them for me they looked like my second draft of a Major Writing Assignment, lines here and there words scribbled over this and that. As the years had proven, I thought I was ready to take on her massive notes.
As I was making cookies and feeling so alone, I realized that her pineapple turnovers were not coming out correctly. The jelly mix that is inserted into the bread dough is supposed to be very gooey and almost dry. I had something very wet and runny. I threw out the batch and started over, going by detail to detail. I could feel my heart breaking in my chest and my eyes welling up with tears, I couldn’t pass this on to Josette or the rest of our family and was going to lose a piece of grandma in the process.
Just then Jimmy, my brother-in-law walked into my house, as he came around the corner I heard him call, “Do you need someone to sample cookies?” I started to cry.
Jimmy married my sister had married my sister a year before this. He is almost ten years younger than my sister and has had a hard time becoming part of our family. He does not have a relationship with his family, he tends to ignore or walk away from family discussions because he has never had them. He is also a construction worker, not the man you would expect to grab a recipe and go to town with it. But he did just that. Jimmy took the recipe and redid the batch of cookies following the directions exactly as they were written. After he realized that we were adding too many eggs and pointed it out I realized my Grandma had put it in the wrong spot on the recipe list. He became my hero in a moment. We were able to fix and save the recipe. As the second batch came out of the oven I realized I was laughing like old times. Jimmy is most certainly not my Grandma, and I may have lost a family member, but I have gained a new one and with that, a new family tradition, together.
“What am I thinking?” I thought to myself. “I can’t bake Christmas cookies without her.”
I decided that I would start the same way we always did. I took Grandma’s cookie recipes and made a shopping list. As with most women of my grandma’s age, they change recipes or figure that adding this later in the recipe or, adding a pinch more of that changes the cookie, but makes it better or her own.
“Oh yeah,” she would say, “I found two pinches of powdered sugar does the trick.”
It was never written on any of her recipes, as she copied them for me they looked like my second draft of a Major Writing Assignment, lines here and there words scribbled over this and that. As the years had proven, I thought I was ready to take on her massive notes.
As I was making cookies and feeling so alone, I realized that her pineapple turnovers were not coming out correctly. The jelly mix that is inserted into the bread dough is supposed to be very gooey and almost dry. I had something very wet and runny. I threw out the batch and started over, going by detail to detail. I could feel my heart breaking in my chest and my eyes welling up with tears, I couldn’t pass this on to Josette or the rest of our family and was going to lose a piece of grandma in the process.
Just then Jimmy, my brother-in-law walked into my house, as he came around the corner I heard him call, “Do you need someone to sample cookies?” I started to cry.
Jimmy married my sister had married my sister a year before this. He is almost ten years younger than my sister and has had a hard time becoming part of our family. He does not have a relationship with his family, he tends to ignore or walk away from family discussions because he has never had them. He is also a construction worker, not the man you would expect to grab a recipe and go to town with it. But he did just that. Jimmy took the recipe and redid the batch of cookies following the directions exactly as they were written. After he realized that we were adding too many eggs and pointed it out I realized my Grandma had put it in the wrong spot on the recipe list. He became my hero in a moment. We were able to fix and save the recipe. As the second batch came out of the oven I realized I was laughing like old times. Jimmy is most certainly not my Grandma, and I may have lost a family member, but I have gained a new one and with that, a new family tradition, together.
My Grandmother
My Grandmother’s age is really starting to show. When walking, her hands grip the handles of her walker with as much force as keeping all the sand in a closed fist. Her ankles are swollen with bright angry red welts all over them. Her back is starting to hunch over, making her much shorter than most hobbits. Her arms are getting smaller from lack of exercise since she can no longer take the swing dance classes she loved so much. It seems like yesterday she glided across the dance floor tapping and swinging her hips to the music. She walked tall and proud and it now more of a shuffle and slide across the ground, no longer making eye contact as she moves about. Things that used to take her three minutes to do now take more than twenty minutes to complete. My Grandma and I used to make apple pies. She would peel the skin off of them, almost faster than the eye could comprehend. Yesterday I watched her take 20 minutes to peel just one apple to eat. It is very hard to watch this once happy easy-moving person I knew, become a little old lady that I no longer know. She is more than just a grandmother to me; she has also been my partner in many adventures that we can no longer do. We would drive for hours searching for new towns or hike many a hill. Now, I worry about her all the time and then she turns to me and smiles at me with the twinkle in her eye and I know she is ready for another journey. No matter how slow and long it might take her to get there.
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