Taylored Memorial Creations

  I moved into a little house on my property. It was in the back, and when I say "little", I mean little ! The entire house was 480 square feet.   In the bathroom you could literally sit on the toilet and wash your hands and move the shower curtain. You know those rugs you buy for around your toilet? Mine doubled as the same rug I stepped on when I exited the shower. There was no floor space for any other bathroom rugs. None.   My husband and I purchased the property with the two houses about 15 years earlier. After he passed away, with both of my kids grown and out of the house, I thought the little house might be a good place for me to "land". I knew the bathroom was in bad shape, but the previous tenant never complained. Which meant in reality, I had NO idea what I was moving into!   The bathroom floor had divets in it, where moisture had caused the particle board to sink in. And yes, the floor was apparently particle board. The rust in the shower had been...

    People are often impressed that I joined the Army out of high school. But the truth is, I joined the Army because the recruiters were pushy, and I did not think I had any alternative options. I was a straight A student, and in the National Honor Society. But no one talked to me about going to college, and I didn’t know how I could possibly pay for it. I didn’t have a car, or even my license or a job, so these things seemed so far out of reach that I didn’t even see it as an option.   My mom never encouraged me to drive. She worked 2nd shift, and she was divorced. My two older sisters drove her car when they lived at home, and both had part-time jobs. I never really thought to ask, and my mom never offered or asked.   I don’t know why she didn’t. The story I tell myself is that it was so stressful to have my older sisters driving her car, and inconvenient, and costly to have them included on her car insurance, that she opted to not encourage me to drive. ...

               Ed was a pastor who seldom wore a tie. He owned ties but believed in a more casual appearance. He didn’t want people to feel like they couldn’t attend church if they didn’t have nice “church clothes”. He always prescribed to the “come as you are” philosophy.             However, he often sported a tie when officiating a wedding or funeral, or some other more serious event. He had a small variety of his favorites. Most of his ties were the plain red, the plain blue or black, and a couple with stripes. He might have had few varieties so as not to interfere with his partial color blindness, I am not sure.             Either way, he had his more professional and versatile plain color ties, and then he had the ties that more reflected his personality. His Snoopy and Charlie Brown tie, his Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse and two...

                I never donated any of my uniforms because I felt like after serving 8 years in the military, I earned my right to keep them. They were a large part of my life spanning almost a decade. For 3 of those years, I wore a set of the Battle Dress Uniforms (BDUs) almost every day.                Those uniforms were issued to me a few days after arriving for my basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. At the reception station we often stood in a long line for something, those first few days—shots, haircuts, and when we were issued our uniforms. Reception personnel took a few measurements and then my 5-foot 95-pound frame was issued 4 sets of “Small, Short” BDU uniforms, 4 brown t-shirts, small, and 2 pair of size 4 black, combat boots complete with 4 pair of green, wool socks.               ...

I dated online. The following stories you are about to hear are true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. I know some might find this shocking. However, after I lost my partner of 29 years, I made the conscious decision not to live the rest of my days on this earth alone. Even God said it was not good for man to be alone. I could live alone, but I did not want to. I loved having that partner who had your back. Someone to laugh with, someone to share your life with. Especially someone with whom I had basically “grown up”. We had a lot of things in common, and we each had other interests outside of our relationship. We each were not perfect, but we were perfect for each other. His strengths complimented my weaknesses, and vice versa. A year or so after he passed away, I began contemplating dating. But at my age, and with my limited dating experience, I wasn’t sure how to go about it. I had not dated in 3 decades. Even though my friends and family knew ...

                 Our family was all about scouting—with Ed IV in Tiger Scouts, Cub Scouts, and then Boy Scouts, Ed was the Cubmaster for several years, Ellis was in Girl Scouts, and I was a Tiger Scout Coordinator one year, and a co-leader for the Girl Scout Troop for several years. “Scout” should have been our middle name! The cubmaster uniform Ed wore at scout events for several years, including pack meetings, pinewood derby races, marching in parades, and Blue and Gold banquets where he would lead the meeting and the songs. He enjoyed leading the scouts, perhaps foreshadowing his time as a pastor. I had hand sewed many of the patches onto his cubmaster shirt. Turning the shirt inside out easily revealed which ones I had sewn, versus the ones that were applied by machine. This shirt enveloped his body for several years while we lived in Iowa. The red and white numbered patches reflected his troop, the “Hawkeye Area Council, Iow...

                                After the t-shirt quilts, I thought about what I could do as an “Ed” memorial for my kids. One of the things I had remaining from my husband’s belongings was an old, wrinkled bag full of patches. Yes, you read that right, and yes, I wrote that right! A brown, paper lunch bag, wrinkled with decades of use. The bag, soft and wrinkled, contained a decade of Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) patches--every year beginning their first year at the EAA Air Show in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin, in 1975 through 1985. Ed’s family were big airplane “buffs”, and indeed, his dad had a pilot’s license for a long time. They would often regale everyone with stories of flying around the country back “in the day”. Ed’s family, every year, would camp out all week at Osh Kosh, for the big air show. His mom had quite the set-up with tents and a screen tent complete with a Coleman ...