A Sense of Doubt blog post #2712 - Reprint of July 22, 2015 and HEY MOM #17 - Memorial Service Part Six

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2712 -  Reprint of July 22, 2015 and HEY MOM #17 - Memorial Service Part Six

The Blog Vacation is coming to an end. I plan to post the vacation list on Sunday as Blog Vacation entry #150 and then get back to "regular" schedules and posts, which actually may not be that much different. I had not intended to be on "Blog Vacation" for 150 days. I may have just created the new normal by cutting out posts that take too much work. The blog was always meant to be simple and easy with the occasional more ambitious post filled with original content.

In fact, coming out of my vacation, I have too many posts scheduled in my first week "back" that are too ambitious, so I am going to have to re-do my schedule. Lately, I have been making some plans up to two months out. I have planner sheets dated through 9/21/22.

So, as I near the end of the "Blog Vacation II," I decided to pull a reprint from this date -- July 22 -- in 2015, the first year of HEY MOM and just 18 days after my Mom died. I question my numbering as HEY MOM #001 was published on July Sixth, so how did I get to Hey Mom #17 by the 22nd? Wouldn't it be HEY MOM #16? 22 - 6 = 16 not 17.

So, a 2015 post, which feels right because I have been missing Mom a lot lately, and about to finally put together a pendant with her ashes, which I plan to wear around my neck all the time.

But these numbering errors are too much to worry about now. I will live with numbering mistakes. After all, I just made one a few days ago and had to re-number, which means that the official blog entry number, in this case 2709, has the wrong number in the URL: 2710.

Oh well.

I have number dyslexia.

Thanks for tuning in.

Blog Vacation Two 2022 - Vacation II Post #148

I took a "Blog Vacation" in 2021 from August 31st to October 14th. I did not stop posting daily; I just put the blog in a low power rotation and mostly kept it off social media. Like that vacation, for this second blog vacation now in 2022, I am alternating between reprints, shares with little to no commentary, and THAT ONE THING, which is an image from the folder with a few thoughts scribbled along with it. I am alternating these three modes as long as the vacation lasts (not sure how long), pre-publishing the posts, and not always pushing them to social media.

Here's the collected Blog Vacation I from 2021:

Saturday, October 16, 2021

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2433 - BLOG VACATION 2021 COLLECTED

Originally published on :

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #17 - Memorial Service pt. 6 - school

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #17 - Memorial Service pt. 6 - school

Hi Mom,

I wish I had a picture of you studying or at school. As far as I know, we do not have such a picture, but then, I am not done going through all the pictures.

Nevertheless, this is a great picture, don't you think?

Your smile is caught halfway between neutral and a smile. Kind of a "neutile." Or a "smeutral." Okay, I am reaching, I know. Still, it was the best photo I had for this entry that seemed distantly school related.

I also like the severe lighting from the camera flash.

Here's the next part of the Memorial Service talk, following from the previous #5:

As you can see the nicknames inter-relate. She was frantically trying to do everything, much too much, and her other mode was being intense. She was intense about everything.

In the early 1990s, she decided to go back to school and finish her college degree, and we observed the collision of both nicknames on a nearly daily basis. My mother was not much for computer use (and this was in the very early days back when we used big floppy disks), and so she wrote all her papers long hand, and I edited and typed them for her. She would go over and over the papers. If one had even a smudge, it had to be printed again. I think we printed one a dozen times. I had always known my mother was particular, but her return to school showed me how much of a perfectionist she could be.
She was very intense about her studies. She would recopy notes multiple times. She would recopy from the recording she made of class periods. She would re-listen, often multiple times, to her recordings while ironing or doing other tasks. She would shut herself in a window-less bathroom with the fan on to provide white noise and study for hours and hours while sitting on a pillow on the toilet. Flash cards, notes, the text book, all the review exercises, the workbooks. Everything and more. She achieved perfect scores nearly all the time on everything as she set the class performance bar for excellence very high. Then again, she only ever took one class at a time.

I was so proud of you for going back to school, Mom. I thought I was a good student when I wanted to be, but watching you study, how hard you worked, it was an inspiration. No normal person with other obligations, like a job, or other classes, could possibly do all that you did in your intensity for school. You are such a perfectionist.

I like that you trusted me to select an English teacher for you when you wanted to take English 105 -- Sherry Dykstra, who was the perfect choice for the kind of student you were. BTW, I tried to find Sherry via Facebook to tell her that you passed away, but I can't find her. She may have a different last name now.

Though I did not show it at the time, and though I was frequently a jerk about how annoyed I seemed with you, it meant so much me that you relied on me to help you with your school work.

For my readers, I was never an unrelenting jerk, and I would apologize and lovingly help you, right Mom?

I would not trade those times for anything.

I think of you often at both WMU and KVCC, and all the good times you had there.

But I will never be able to live up to your example.

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- Days ago = 18 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1507.22 - 17:53
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2207.22 - 10:10

- Days ago = 2576 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.