Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah wishes 2019 from Jeff Schrembs

 

My prayers, thoughts, heart, and soul always go out to my daughter who recently turned 12 years old. She is a beautiful girl and I applaud her; mother, brothers, grandparents and uncle each of which are…exceptional.

This is not directed to my beautiful 12 year old daughter as there have been things this year that have saddened me greatly. Decision and acts I prayed about intently and though it pains my soul I do hope that my prayers will be answered (i.e. the care she needs to battle her dependency and her horrific; language, inability to provide stability, and her mental instability). Also, I learned of a good man who I’ll always love – pray for – care about – etc. who, like one of my own battles with cancers, has throat cancer. I pray he recovers fully and that his, and that of his family members, life is long and full of happiness, love,  and stability. Battling cancer(s) is a terrible taxing ordeal and the only thing that truly makes it “worse” is to go through it…alone. As my brother battles his own terrible disease(s) I pay for him and his family 24/7.

I’ve been blessed to know/have known the love of a great woman. The everlasting love of each of my children. The eternal love of my grandchildren. Success in my chosen profession. The beauty of friendship and of family. I am humbled and grateful.

Life is never guaranteed in length, or qualify, of.  But if we chose to dwell on the past we lose the ability to appreciate the moment. The day. The week. The month. The years.

I wish everyone a blessed and Happy Hanukkah and a Merry Christmas 2019.

Take care and may God bless each of you and yours…always.

 

Jeff Schrembs

 

 

REUNITED (after 40 years)

When I permanently damaged the tendon in my right-hand index finger, which required surgery and in those days repairing a bone/tendon was in its infancy and most surgeons could not undertake the surgery, over 40 years ago I was devastated. A year prior I had inguinal hernia surgery, again most surgeons would not perform the surgery and now the hand that I threw footballs with. Shot basketballs with. Drew with etc. was irreparably damaged even after the surgery as was the area around the inguinal hernia. Both of these injuries were rare and individually and/or collectively adversely effected everything I excelled it was taken from me (or so I thought as did everyone else)

I had been blessed to excel in sports and art. My mother was a great artist and it seemed to easily flow unto the drawing paper from the pencil(s) she used. At around 5th grade I realized that I too had artistic talents. To make this post a summary I was President of the Art Club twice, was accepted and went to a prestigious Art School in Atlanta, and had a large portfolio of exceptional drawings. Many of which stayed at my Mothers home when I went off to college.

Through the years I have mourned the loss of many of my possessions including a very large 24×36 portrait drawing of my high school girlfriend. I had it framed, matted, and topped off with acid-resistant glass. I got many accolades about this drawing and when I gave it to her she was very happy. Her mother was speechless a memory I old till this day as sadly she recently passed away. Later on, her Father made a positive comment about it as it hung in a place of prominence in their home. Her parents I adored and have the utmost respect for them and my girlfriend’s brother Jay

I had reached out to their family, over a period of years, to ask if I could have a copy made as I considered it one of my favorites/best. Somehow my mother got it and had an 8×10 copy made and unknowingly she sent it to me recently and I was blown away to see it, even if it was dimensionally smaller, again and it brought back a lot of memories. Since my children have never seen this drawing, along with so many others, I opted to share it on this blog.

Note – I had to WATERMARK this drawing, as I have all my others, to protect my artwork from being “stolen” and/or used by others when in fact I created every line. Every shadow. Every highlight. Every eyelash. I am proud of this drawing and blessed that after these 40 years.  BUT the scan does not do justice to the original nor my high school girlfriend but it does capture the overall drawing even though it appears here to be so much darker.

As always comments will be read and appreciated in confidentially

Take care and God bless you

Jeff Schrembs.

Jeff Schrembs self pic October 16 2018

For my little girl. I love so very very much. 

Live, laugh, love

Live – I exist and that is fine for my hopes and prayers are that all of my children live. Truly live each day. Truly live each breath.

Laugh – I don’t recall the last time I truly laughed. A laugh originating from joy. From a stirring of the heart and sometimes…the soul. But I hope my little girl and her sister and brothers laugh and laugh a lot for they are each; smart, beautiful. talented, witty, funny, and are (individually and collectively) capable of cracking me up and/or laughing so hard it is contagious. A father loves to hear his children laugh.

Love = I love my children. I miss my children. I pray for my children/their mother/their mothers family, their spouses, their own children, etc. and I want the best for them as they truly can achieve anything they set their mind and hard work to. God has given them each many talents and I hope they pursue what they love and know that every second of every day I love them and I am proud of them.

WTF x 2 Ex brother in law withdraw?

Here is the scene as I type. I have pneumonia right lung is worse so I’m kinda feeling down and a little weak. This has never happened again and no disrespect to him but I never envisioned I couldn’t get him out of my head but out of my “Sargent pepper and the lonely hearts club band” dream (google it and you will get the idea) my ex brother in law made a guest appearance. Weird huh? Wellllllllllllllllllll it didn’t end there.

There wasn’t a time, from the beginning to the end, when my brother in law did anything but be a great brother to my ex.. Great uncle to my children. And he was always respectful to me and I’m sorry to him for the last year as I am to others.

I always respected bright quick intelligent minds. When I learned of his attending college and then opting to learn the Japanese language, then go live in japan, and then become a highly respected teacher who taught Americans the Japanese language which he was fluent in. I admired him. I should have told him that.

We all age and life becomes more reactionary as opposed to proactive. Not only that but when you start looking forward to the medical alert, free back brace, free neck brace, joint repair in a bottle, etc. one half an hour infomercials that begin in mass around midnight it hits you that… you are not the person you once were as you now qualify for discounts at movie theaters as opposed to being asked for an ID. AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Now, there have been time that I have thought of my ex brother in law and kept him in my prayers but seeing him in my dream in vivid color-rama, yeah I dream in colors and don’t you hate it when you have a great dream and you temporarily wake up and you want to go back to it but life smacks you with NO DICE. No going back to that dream, made it real. It brought back his expressions and voice. I started this blog as a positive outlet. I made a commitment that I would share what’s in my head, thoughts, or heart as it comes. That I would not sugar coat things about me and my prior and current life. Also, as anyone can attest who reads any of my blog posts I type exactly what I am thinking without a desire for grammatical correctness. So this semi-explains why I opted to write this specific blog. To those who don’t instantly get my sense of human I wan to say “HOW IN THE WORLD CAN YOU MISS THE GENIUS IN MY HILARIOUS WORDS/SENTENCES?”. Really?

Well I’m off to finish watching the end of the tv show “bringing up bates” as Tori  is getting married. I enjoy this show and the parents have done a great job raising their children. I am knowledgeable about this as I had the honor to have the best mother and father in law who are exceptional people individually and collectively, have been the GREATEST grandparents to my children, and in many ways I remain in awe of. I am very sorry to them for any/all pains/hurt and always will.

To my brother in law in my dreams I extend a hand and invitation to return to my dreams in the future but I will always remember that in this specific dream that we were in Hawaii – we rescued a few infinity stones (google it and yeah its funny) – we were internationally acknowledged – we were awarded an annual stipend of 100 billion dollars – we were gifted by the Pope with our own customized spaceships a technology they had for centuries but never shared before building ours – received the serum aka from the fountain of youth in giant 2 liter bottles – we worked together to stop the army of clowns riding on the backs of grizzly bears blowing streamers rushing towards us with bad intentions – and we went to a few bars and got wasted (I don’t drink but boy oh boy I did in this dream). Who wouldn’t want to continue this dream? So I am having ex brother in law withdraw syndrome and being 100% honest I wish him; the greatest happiness, the love of a good woman, success in his professional career, laughter, good health, and a long and happy life. He’s a good man.

Take care and may God bless you and yours with each breath.

 

 

Weather 4/16/2018

Is it really 2018? Am I really 55 (aaaaaggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh)? Man, when is a White Castle going to be in this area? What is an iphone (psyche I know – just testing you)?

Let’s recap. Today is a rainstorm with hail. 2 days ago it was 84 degrees. 2 weeks ago I had to get about 6 inches of snow off my vehicle as it snowed. Do I believe in “climate change”? Yeah, but they used to be called “seasons” back in the day but these past few weeks have been a unique tease of which way the rest of this month will be. If it was up to me I would go for spring plus 5 degrees and without the pollen. DREADED pollen. Man if there wasn’t mucinex and inhalers it would be a…nightmare. Why do I put so many words in parentheses? The combination have reeked havoc for my sinuses/pneumonia/ear infection/etc.

THANK YOU to everyone @ wordpress for having such a great site and allowing so many to be able to have a voice.

Did that punxsutawnee animal see it’s shadow? I know when I saw mine is was a lot thinner than it was when I last remember having a shadow. Weight loss via sickness who would have thought? I’ll choose good health for a thousand. Is that game show still around?

 

 

 

Random memories April 2018

Yes this story is real.

Yes it pops into my head and I have an unwavering desire to… (Yeah you gotta read the rest of this blog post).

Here is the location and those involved. Man I’m getting flashbacks . My (then) mother in law and father in law I called him pops. You’ll never find better people, parents, and grandparents and my young daughter and sons are blessed to have them in their lives. So they are visiting at our home and after eating we all talked until they had to leave.

Pops loved my brownies, yeah I can cook and bake, and I went to give hugs and to surprise him with a batch of brownies I leaned forward and moved to the left and BANG. My hair, face, eyebrow, eyelash, nostril, part of my mouth, and chin became entangled and stuck to a wide hanging fly trap that I had put up , as it was summer, a few days before. I started t talk and move away but some of the flies were moving a little and it made my eyes crossed.

As my (then) wife had seen it happen in real time and she was cracking up as was her father . I had to take down the entire fly trap and I ran in the bathroom still hearing their laughter. I scrubbed everything, washed my hair, about 20 times including my tongue. Aaaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

 

Absentee words (March 2018 edition)

Absentee words? Oxymoronic I know but I’ll explain.

Back in the day there were words that were used/spoken that seldom are today and I know this because (1) I don’t hear them anymore and (2) my grandchildren are my speech police and they have been writing me “what do you mean/that’s not a word/I’ve never heard of that/Grandpa is that a real word…tickets?” more and more often.

Here are some that came to mind in no specific order; fine, gullet. for sure, banging (not the vulgar usage), homey, sneakers, dope, hello, welcome, fixin, supper, clouds a comin, daddy-o, belly, big red (the soda drink and I haven’t had a sip of it for decades but I hold on to hope…jealous?), catch ya later, natch, wobble, kickin it, sweatin (such as “why are you sweatin me?), wolf ticket, I’ll be seeing ya, howdy, youngster, mack daddy, bop (as in a place to dance), operator I’d like to make a call, cat (as in the slang to call someone), hep, boondoggle, burnt (as in you made a mistake or you were caught), random, four score (you know the rest courtesy of Abe Lincoln), gams (as in a womans legs), beef (as in a disagreement), handsome, get ya some, etc.

…to be continued

Thanks for visiting and as always my daughter, my family, and my children and theirs remain in my thoughts. My prayers. And in my heart and soul.

Take care and may God bless you and yours.

Your so young and beautiful…

This song, by a little-known singer named Elvis Presley (bada bing)s, has always been one of deep meaning for me. Not because Elvis recorded it during the height of his fame but because when he sang it, at the end of the movie standing hugging co-star Judy Tyler, it resonated with me. Even being that young at the time I knew, and maybe I was in some ways an “old soul”, that being young and beautiful was…fleeting. This combined with the knowledge that Judy Tyler, who was so beautiful and talented, got her first major acting role in Jailhouse Rock with Elvis but (sadly) she died in a car accident prior to Jailhouse Rock being released. Seeing her, in black and white, so vibrant – so fetching – so true to her character – and having that unique smile did not register that (sadly) this was her last time on screen. Last time on earth.

When Elvis received the news he was devastated. When he learned of the horrific nature that took her life he was beyond consolable. How could it be he thought? Wasn’t it just a few months ago he last saw her? Why? Elvis, who was always very sensitive and wore his emotions on his face and in his mood and in his physical appearance, took time away to grieve. He cried. He was always the one, dating back to childhood where he told his beloved mother Gladys Love (Smith) Presley that he would “take care of her” “buy her a big home”, etc., who was the fixed. The solver. The Comforter. The one providing a shoulder to cry on. The one who offered a support that transcended basic humanity and care. Though many have written about Elvis’ life with kudos to; Alanna Nash, Russ Howe, Billy Smith, Sandie Kaye Stevens, Larry Geller, Sandi Pichon, Martine Prizzo, Phil Arnold, etc. this loss hurt Elvis in a grief he bore throughout his life.

Young is usually defined pertaining to an age. A time period. Beautiful is usually defined by the visual. But, to me, I grew up with my Momaw (Mothers Mother) who was so young at heart and always kept moving she was a dynamo she was…young. She was also beautiful in spirit and her wants for her family and fellow man. I miss her. I miss her….so.

I have always thought without hesitation that every woman, and child, is beautiful. They radiate the essence of love. Of beauty. They are magnificent as God intended them to be. Now, I have had the honor to have dated and married women who were; smart, funny, beautiful, etc. To outsiders, they saw the physical beauty but to me, they were at their most beautiful without makeup. Wearing my t-shirt or sweats having just woken up. Or the serenity of their sleep.

I have a little girl who is growing up so fast. She is young and she is beautiful. I pray for and think of, her each day. Like my other children, I want the best for her and for her dreams to manifest into hard work, commitment, and achievement. They are all talented and bestowed with unique gifts that astound me. I love them so.

Thanks for visiting and please let others know about this blog, and my others, via social media.

Take care and may God bless you and yours… every day.

 

Jeff Schrembs

 

From Jailhouse Rock here is Elvis Presley with Judy Tyler. Enjoy.

Beats so lonely (one of my favorite but long lost songs of the 1980’s)

Courtesy of YouTube

Try playing it from the 1:20 minute mark to hear the vocals starting on the song. Man, I used to listen to this on cassette or 45 back in the day over and over. No one had even heard of him or his song but I caught it when scanning my cassette/radio in my car one day and the beat, vocals, and the rawness were worth listening to and I went out and bought the 45, cassette, and album.

Enjoy