Happy Birthday Mom (again)

Today we finished up our first War Amps CHAMPS seminar. I don't know what I really expected going in, but coming out I feel so much better than I expected it's difficult to believe. I had no idea how much support they would be able to offer us. It's really an incredible organization. There was a session on Saturday morning for parent counselling and while I didn't think I was particularly well adjusted to the whole thing -- and I'm not, I did see some of the areas for concern still there, so I've got something to work on -- I was really shocked at some of the stories they were able to share with us of the reactions some parents have.

Anyway, it wrapped up early today and it's been raining pretty well all morning, so I decided to take a bit of time on Mom's birthday to scan some more pictures and share them here. There's the one in the link, which is from about 1954 of her and her brother at the farm in Norboro (I think), but there's a few others in there I never expected. As you'll be able to see, the envelope was just a mix of her random photos that didn't fit anywhere else. One I'm pretty sure my dad gave her when he was first chasing her really speaks to the time.

The First Surprise

I hadn't planned on scanning or posting anything today but I had the "Nice Day" photo still out sitting on my desk so I thought I should put it back in the envelope where I found it and just started flipping through some of the other photos in there. There are a few negatives there (I'll get to those later) but most of the photos clearly didn't come from them, it's just a random collection of sizes and shapes from all different times. Then I found this one and figured I had to share.

I don't know anything about this picture, I've never seen it or any like it before. My guess is it's a school photo from when she was going to school in Norboro, but that's all I've got.

The gallery I put this one in is here.

Anyway, I hear crying upstairs, I'm going to go check on things, more photos later this week, I figure.

Photos from Evie

We went to cousin Evie's for Easter dinner yesterday and she gave me an envelope full of photos, nearly all of them from a Christmas (probably 1978) and a summer vacation they took to the Island. So I'm taking this as my first attempt at scanning and uploading the photos I've been saying I'm going to do for literally years now. They fit this blog since most of them have Mom in them and I'm sure Mom has some similar photos to fill out these sets when I get through the bins of photos I have from her.

The full set of photos are over here. This applies to all the pictures I'm going to post here, if you know something about them that I don't know, people, times, places, whatever, please post that either in the comments or on the Picasa comments section!

The Photo

I hope I'll get back to this now, I'm feeling motivated now and specifically went into the pile of totes full of Mom's stuff looking for this photo so I could start this off.

Why right now? Mostly because I had a dream last night that won't leave me. I was at the curling club with Christine and James. It was a party and we were drinking and talking with friends and then by the door I saw Mom standing there. She wasn't saying anything, just watching and smiling. That's it. That's the whole dream.

Anyway, the photo that inspired the name for the blog. Or at least one of them, I'm sure there are others I've seen with exactly the same "Nice Day" comment on them, sometimes with a period, usually not.