Category: feelings

feelings

grandpa’s greatest hits

abby mumford

as i read through old blog posts and comments and emails, it was startling to me how obvious you were and how blind i was.

thank you, grandpa for your unwavering belief in me and for your quiet, but sturdy love.

when he shared his memories of his earlier years, i could see how much he’d changed, but also, where my dad came from and why he expresses himself the way he does. because of grandpa’s self-reflection, i learned not only about him, but about myself, my family (immediate and extended), and my ancestors as well.

i never saw that coming.

but that was the beauty of grandpa’s educational style of late. he spoke about himself and his experiences as he passed along advice wrapped up with love. sometimes you could only hear his story and sometimes you could only see the advice and sometimes you could only feel the love, but once in awhile, you experienced it all as he intended and you were enriched because of it.

guest post #1 (plus, see comments section)
guest post #2
guest post #3
guest post #4
guest post #5
history lesson (see comments section)
belief in me
science lesson (see comments section)
happy 88th birthday

grandpa

january 11, 1925 – january 16, 2013

wordpress com stats plugin
feelings

happy birthday, grandpa

abby mumford

today is my grandfather’s birthday. he’s 88 years old.

it’s a big accomplishment that’s garnered him a lot of wisdom along the way. he’s worked and studied and learned and embraced change with each year and the most interesting thing, for me, has been his attitude towards technology, i.e. he’s not afraid of it.

he’s more fearless than i am.

the side effects of this attitude have been that i’ve been given a chance to get to know my grandfather through emails and phone calls and his comments on this very blog and as it turns out, we have more in common than just the same last name.

he reads. he writes (his memoir via email which is a fascinating study on memory). he’s ambitious. he’s thoughtful. he collects quotes. he’s interested in words while at the same time being a whiz with numbers.

*record scratches*

okay, fine, we don’t have the math thing in common. honestly, both of my grandfathers + my father went to MIT. WHY OH WHY didn’t i get any of those math/science-y genes?

anyways, happy birthday, grandpa! i hope today’s a grand day that’s just the start of another wonder filled year.

1963
grandpa before he was grandpa and was just dad, aka 1963.
feelings

out of shape

abby mumford

my lacrosse coach from freshman year (of high school) once said, “it takes two weeks to get into proper shape and only three days to get out of it.” after taking a month off from blogging, i’m finding that sentiment ringing in my ears because there are no thoughts in my brain to muffle it.

after a flurry of words in november and a lot of movement but very few words in december, my blogging/writing skills are rusty at best and stunted at worst.

lucky you, dear reader. lucky you.

you get a front row seat as i stretch and stumble, write and wobble, flail and fail, and generally try to remember how to ride this writing bike. it’ll be GOOD TIMES, even if it does look a little like this:

but then again, 2012 was a good year for that look. let’s see what i can do with it in 2013.

p.s. thank you to my nephews A & L for making me sit down and watch that video. it’s important to be hip to the trends, no matter if it is a 7 and 4yo showing me the way.

wordpress com stats plugin
feelings

look at me go

abby mumford

speaking of checking things off a life to do list, i crossed off two more things recently (it was a productive thanksgiving, what can i say?)

*eat a november cake (an amazing sounding recipe from THE SCORPIO RACES, one of my favorite books. fortunately, sister E loves to bake, so she made these for me and all i had to do was keep her company in the kitchen. sweet deal, huh?)

*write a novel (50k words) in 30 days or less. (yup. i finished. 58,620 words to be precise. 50,006 written from 11/1 to 11/24 combined with 8,614 words written the last week of october.) and now i’m going to let it sit for a bit and then i shall revise the heck out of it.

while i’m letting my manuscript sit around and marinate, i will be doing the exact opposite. i’ll be traveling to a country i’ve never been to before. for work.

this is shaping up to be a VERY interesting end to 2012 for me.

wordpress com stats plugin
feelings

check THAT off the list

abby mumford

there has always been this one thing on my life to do list that i hadn’t shared with many people since it’s, well, a loaded topic.

what was that thing?

shooting a gun.

no one in my family hunts or owns a gun (to my knowledge), so i’ve never been around a gun before. i don’t even really like action movies with too much violence, but for some reason, i’ve always wanted to shoot a gun. i mean, something other than that orange remote controlled duck hunt ninetendo game thing.

lo and behold, this thanksgiving, i found myself surrounded by a cop and a doctor, wearing protective eye and ear gear and standing in front of a target. before this moment, i watched a five minute safety video and got a quick rundown of the gun + its parts, and then, it was go time.

so THAT’S what the back of my head looks like

after holding the gun(s) in my hands, i understood why i wanted to try it in the first place.

POWER.

it was scary and nerve wracking and interesting and creepy and unlike anything i had ever experienced and exactly like i had expected though much, much louder.

the recoil was jerky and uncontrollable and confusing because from my time playing (or trying) almost every sport under the sun, the way your arm followed through generally determined the arc/angle/ending point of the ball/puck, and when the gun jerked up after the trigger was pulled, it shocked me the bullet didn’t travel a similar, uneven path and end up 12 meters higher than i aimed for.

not bad for a novice, eh?

having finally (and randomly) checked this off my life’s goals list, i want everyone to follow suit. i know this is usually the time of year we’re all reviewing what we did and planning for the new one, but instead of making resolutions, i recommend getting out there and doing them.

starting now.

but be safe! and follow all the rules! and surround yourself with experts! (i mean, hello, could one be any safer at a gun range than with a cop and a doctor? i don’t think so.)

wordpress com stats plugin