Holy Family

We all knew that it was going to be 100 degrees yesterday, so I pretty much had one goal.....keep the kids busy, cool, and out of the house.  My mom has a beautiful home, but the house was built in like the 1800's or something, like many houses on the East side, so there are only air conditioning units in the bedrooms.  The last heat wave we had made me stay away from sharp objects because I wanted to kill someone if they even talked to me, so I had a plan this time.  (Ok, I am kidding.  I didn't want to literally kill, but we were metaphorically all at each other's throats.)

The first thing we did was go to the gym.  LA Fitness is in the mall; it's upstairs in an office building.  It's big, but not nearly as large as the one at home.  Anyway, I let Logan go book shopping at Barnes and Noble while I worked out.  When we were finished we went to the food court and the kids played in the play area for a pretty long time.  When they were bored of that we decided to drive around a little.  I showed Logan my old house, my old school, and we played at the park that's across from my old school; I think it's called Lake Bluff or something like that.

Below is a picture of my old school, Holy Family.  I have written about Holy Family before.  Holy Family is where I wore plaid skirts, where I met Katie, and where Sister Mary Francis was principal.  Sister Mary Francis is the reason I was afraid of nuns.  She used to click-clack down the marble hallway and shake her giant key ring....I always felt like she was coming for me.  I remember getting sent to her office (probably for talking and disrupting the class in some way) and as soon as I would open the door, cigarette smoke rolled out of the doorway and into my face.  She sat there in dim light behind her desk and with her raspy voice, she called me in for yet another lecture.  I picture a scary, bony finger, pointing and shaking at me too, but I think that part is just my imagination because it would complete the picture.  I think that if you picture George Burns as the devil, you can accurately see Sister Mary Francis behind her desk.  I was truly scared of her and her orange-grey hair, but it still didn't keep me from talking in class.

Katie and I became friends on a bus; we were going on a field trip.  We were fighting over who liked Bette Midler more and we argued over the spelling of her name.  (Isn't that weird? We were 10 and fighting over who liked Bette Midler more.)  She said you spell her name "Bet" and I said "Bette".  Of course, I ended up the speller and she ended up the business-savvy one.  We also discovered that we both loved American Girl dolls and not only that, but the same American Girl dolls, Molly and Samantha.  I remember going to Madison on a field trip.  My mom got me a throwaway camera and the only pictures that I came home with were of a dead squirrel on the lawn.  I have no idea why Katie and I found this dead squirrel so interesting, but perhaps it's because we were in fourth grade.  These are just a few memories I have of my friendship with Katie.

Here are a couple of pictures of my school.  The second one shows what I called "the cubby".  If you look closely, it's behind the trashcans.  It is a doorway between the school and the church.  This is where I would hide and shiver and chatter my teeth and pray to God for time to go by faster so I could go inside where it was warm.  I used to beg my teachers to let me stay in with them at recess, but they never allowed it.  Katie used to tell me that I would warm up if I ran around, but I never listened.  I just curled into a ball and waited to freeze to death.  I was sure that I would freeze to death, every day.

Holy Family

My safe haven from the wind and snow

Have a great day!