Where'd That Wacky Title Come From???

Again, I must thank my friend, Debbie, for giving me permission to use a title for my blog that seems... well... a little weird.  [BUT-- have you seen some OTHER blog titles out there?  Well, don't go searching NOW.  Finish reading this post... then go blog-hopping.  Trust me, my title will NOT seem very weird within a couple minutes!]

I also must give credit to a Cooking Channel show that I stumbled across while soaking up some TV at my parents' house a couple months ago.  The show is called, "My Grandmother's Ravioli."  The show was pretty cute, and if I had cable, I'd definitely tune in!  But, I don't.  So, I won't.  :)

Anyhoo... when I was brainstorming with Debbie one day (AKA: rambling on while she politely listened), I told her that I had a crazy title idea, and I said it out loud while I felt brave, and she DIDN'T LAUGH!  She said that she really liked it!  Now, it DOES require a bit of explanation... so, here's THAT:

Without going into a TON of detail (I'll save that for future posts with which to bore you!), the story of "my grandmother's lamp" (lowercase) begins way back in the 1990s, when my Grandma Beulah was still alive.  She had this AWESOME lamp that I LOVED.  I jokingly said to her one day, "Can I have that lamp when you die?"  [She was a granny with a sense of humor, so it wasn't morbid or disrespectful!]  She said, "Sure, you can."  Well, over the next year, she started giving away a few things that she knew she wanted specific people to have, and she told my Mom to come get "the lamp" because she couldn't be sure that it wouldn't get snatched up by someone else after she was gone.

Unfortunately, at the time when the lamp was given to me, I was living half a state away, and I didn't want to take the lamp home (where I had a rambunctious puppy) and risk it getting broken, so the lamp stayed with my parents.

A couple years later, I got a divorce (ex-husband got the DOG) and decided on a whim to move half-way across the country for "a change of scenery."  So, again... the lamp stayed behind.

Fast-forward 12 years (again, I am skipping a LOT of details that are not important to THIS story... yet ARE important!  I'll come back to them later, I promise), and my family (I gained a husband and three kiddos over that 12-year span) FINALLY achieved our dream of moving from the Pacific Northwest back to Arkansas, where I grew up, to live near my family.

I could FINALLY have my lamp!!!

Except I don't have it.  It's still at my parents' house.

WHY don't I have this lovely lamp in my home right now?  WHY is it sitting in a spare bedroom 3.5 miles away, instead of providing beauty and ambient light to my somewhat-dark living room right this second?

I'm not sure.  Well, I think PART of the reason is that I have a toddler, and I DON'T have a sturdy end-table on which to put the lamp just yet, so I'm <yet again> living in FEAR of something happening to that darn lamp!

Now, this lamp is NOT an expensive lamp, I don't think.  I've seen similar lamps in second-hand stores selling for around $10, so it's not that it's monetarily valuable, although it IS sentimentally valuable to me.  [I'll post a picture someday soon!]  So, it's not that I'm afraid of something happening to it, thereby destroying my chance to take it to Antiques Road Show and then selling it at auction for $10,000!  Nope.  I'm just... AFRAID.

So, what does this lamp represent in my life?  Well, to be quite honest, I don't quite have that figured out just yet.  But, my first instinct is that I need to just find a way to ENJOY the stinkin' lamp!  Yes, it COULD get broken!  But, will that destroy the memory of my grandmother?  Nope.  Will life go on if that lamp gets broken?  Yes.  Most likely, life WILL go on.

Part of what the lamp represents, I think, is simply a tangible representation of "proximity" to my family now.  My mom had been trying to convince us to move here for YEARS before we finally took the plunge.  In fact, we had several "false starts," when we THOUGHT we were going to really do it... and then things didn't work out.  But, NOW-- we are finally HERE.  My family is right down the road.  We live in a house on 9 acres that is [sort of] in the country, and we LOVE IT!  My kids go to school with their cousins, and we are all very happy-- despite the trepidation I felt about moving, at first.

The lamp may also somewhat represent the fulfillment of a dream... and yet the lamp is still back in the corner, not being showcased in my home.  [There were other "tangibles" of the dream-fulfilled, too-- like the cedar chest my dad built for me when we FIRST said we were moving here-- about 8 years ago.  Then, there was the pre-lit Christmas tree that my mom bought for us several years ago (post-Christmas clearance sale) during another "We're moving back!" escapade that didn't pan out.  The good news is that the cedar chest IS in my bedroom, being utilized,  and we DID use the Christmas tree just a few short weeks ago!  So, we're not COMPLETE dream-fulfillment duds.]  ;) 

Okay, I think I need to stop here.  I feel that I've rambled long enough.  Hopefully, you get a sense of where I'm coming from with "my grandmother's lamp."  I'm still mulling it over, and I know that naming a blog without a clear vision seems wacky... but, apparently, that's how I roll. 

Next time, I'll address the subtitle:  Finding Fortitude in Daily Folly.  Should be interesting!

Ciao!

[I'm not even Italian.  Not sure where that came from.  Sorry.]