Introduction by our very own Jodycakes –

Hello there, folks…I’m SO excited to have the dynamic duo of Lil Sis/Big Sis up this week as our guest bloggers!  I have to say, I don’t exactly know how “we” came about…well, I do, but as I always say, ‘that’s a whole other Oprah” (basically my sad wobegotten post about losing my Dad brought in the most beautiful people and L.S. & B.S. were two of ‘em).  I am doubly thrilled by them and in moving forward of getting to “know” these ladies, I find them HI-LAR-EEEEEE-OUS that their forum is similar to our own, in the fact that they each post on different days about totally different topics as we do…for instance, recently Big Sis did a post warning LilSis (obviously not a cat person) to take heed in the hairball pictures (the coolest bit is that Ashy Poo – kitty has blue toenails) but on the VERY NEXT DAY, I could totally relate to LilSis and how she won’t be wearing the ‘six pack’ abs due to the fact that she’s rocking the Walking Boot…Been there too.  I love these ladies – they talk about food, friends, and life in general and for that…I am blessed to know that I can bond with such DAMN kick ass women…One final note – they are total POTATO HO’s like us…check out this whimsical dish – The Pink Potatino…Allow me to introduce to you (in no particular order) Lil Sis & Big Sis ::claps::

Who are BigSis and LilSis?

First of all, we are really sisters.

BigSis works in a beautiful high rise office in Dallas and she lives in Dallas with her two little furkids, Ashy Poo and Gaby Baby. When she’s not working or cleaning up after the furkids, BigSis is always occupied with working out, baking, working on a craft project, creating for a cooking contest, or estate saling.

LilSis works from home for SirHoney’s business. She and SirHoney have a blended, yours, mine, and ours family with five children and three grandchildren. LilSis resides in southern CA, with her hubby, SirHoney, son, HayHay and kitty, TomTom. Just in the past week, LilSis’ older son, BryBry moved into his own place and sadly, SarahGirl – the best Great Dane ever – left us to go to heaven.

On a lighter note, we’re just two sisters who love to talk. And we talk about everything on our BigSisLilSis blog. You can read more about us HERE.  We talk about food, makeup, health, fitness, skin care, and much more…anything that women talk about, we talk about!

So the gals from WMDA asked us to write a guest post on anything we wanted, and suggested that we write about something that shows who we are.  That made us think.  Who are we?  Where did we come from?  What made us the people we are?  We started reminiscing about all of the things that we used do with our spare time as kids, and just thinking about it brings back some great childhood memories. It also made us realize what a stark contrast our childhood was to the experience that kids have “these days”.

There were lots of things we didn’t have as kids, but we didn’t realize it and we certainly didn’t miss any of these things:

• Television in our bedroom.  We had one TV in the family living room and it got 5 channels…the 3 networks, public TV and 1 local channel!  There was no cable TV, VCR, DVD player, DVR, Blu-Ray, Netflix, Blockbuster or Pay per View.  5 channels…period.
• Telephone in our bedroom.  We had one phone in the living room, and it seemed sufficient.  Of course, there were no cell phones and no texting.  If you wanted to tell a friend something, you walked over to their house.
• Computers. No computer games, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Google, internet, chat rooms or blogs.
• Portable music beyond an AM transistor radio.  No iPod or CD player.  We had record players that played 33 LPs and 45 singles.
• No spring break.  It was so simple.  We had 2 weeks off at Christmas, and 3 months off in summer.  No winter break, fall break, or any of those other breaks.

If you asked kids today to give up all those things that they have never had to do without, they literally wouldn’t know what to do with themselves!  They’d freak out.

We’re not whining though. We aren’t whiners! Maybe we’re even bragging that we grew up the way we did?  Maybe.  We had a blast as kids and have some great childhood memories. If we didn’t have all the electronics and high tech “stuff”, just what did we DO???  OMG, what did we DO?  Well, we did a lot!

• We played outside. In the summer, it would be common for us to hop on our bikes and not even come back home until dark.
• We went swimming at the public pool and got a giant pickle for a nickel.
• We built forts, tree houses and had clubs with other kids.
• We built dirt roads and cities for our Hot Wheels.
• We bought big bags of sunflower seeds and walked all over the city with our friends, spitting a trail of shells as we walked.
• We made things with our Incredible Edibles and Thingmaker machines.  Those machines would literally burn your fingers off, so they’d never be allowed on the market now.  We always wanted an easy bake oven but never had one.
• We took old pots and pans from the kitchen and made mud pies.  Gasp!  We got *dirty* and had no hand sanitizers!
• We played games, but not X-Box, Gameboy, Playstation, or Wii games.  We played Sorry, Monopoly, Twister, Clue, Mystery Date, and jacks.  If the weather was good, we played Dodge Ball, Red Rover, Hide-n-Seek, or It.
• We played with our Barbies and with Crissy and Velvet. Crissy belonged to LilSis and Velvet belonged to BigSis. We could entertain ourselves for hours playing with their hair, and we still have them!
• We roller skated all over the neighborhood in those ‘old timey’ metal skates that you attached over your gym shoes…without a helmet! And our knees were never without big scabs from trying repeatedly to go down the neighbors’ steep driveway without falling. (You’d think we would have figured out that it was not possible.)
• We suffered our share of bumps, bruises, and scrapes, but thankfully never had a broken bone.
• We thought we were rich if we got a dollar to walk to the corner 7-11 to buy candy.  It’s a wonder we have any teeth left in our heads!  We bought Lemon Heads, Laffy Taffy, Now Laters, Neccos, Sugar Daddies and Sugar Babies, Maple Nut Goodies, Chick-O-Sticks, Three Musketeers, Boston Baked Beans, French Burnt Peanuts, and gum full of sugar with little cartoons in the wrappers. (We would bring SisMama home a Cherry Mash or a Mounds, just to be sweet little kids.)
• We had fun at our grandparents’ house when we sisters would go for visits in the summer. Our Grandmama occupied us with scraps of fabric and a pair of pinking shears.  We played in her jewelry box and tried on her earrings that would pinch your ears so hard they would go numb and have a red indentation for hours. We made fried pies together with peaches picked straight off her tree.  We had a snack of cheese and a partly frozen Dr. Pepper in a bottle while General Hospital was on.  We went to Piggly Wiggly and had a box of animal crackers while we shopped.  We went to the local “five and dime” store called Wackers and loved the talking parrot they kept in the store that would repeat over and over “Shop at Wackers, Shop at Wackers, Shop at Wackers”.  We had Spaghetti Os and sweet rolls for dinner.  We smelled the petunias and always think of our Grandmama when we do now.

We sometimes wonder if growing up in Texas was different than maybe growing up somewhere else.  Hmmm?

Did other kids play with Horned Toads?  We’d chase them and collect a whole shoe box full. We would get our brothers together and all have a little friendly horny toad competition to see whose was the meanest. When you get them mad, they puff up their bodies to try to make themselves look even more “horny” And, did you know if you get a horny toad really, really mad, they are able to squirt an aimed stream of “blood” from the corners of their eyes? How many kids today have had that experience?

Did other kids grab bologna and string and drive to the creek on their bikes for a day of crawdad fishin?

Did other kids capture and torture June bugs and grasshoppers? Did you know June bugs have brown stuff squirt from their bodies when thrown into a bowl of hot water?  (Sorry, we were kids; sometimes ornery kids.)

Did other kids go out into the yard in the summer and pick spear grass and viciously throw it at their siblings?  Did you know that the spear grass with the red tips is the sharpest and could literally stab someone through their clothes?? Tee hee.  We know from experience; ask our brothers!

We love our brothers dearly and we sisters are great friends now. Were we always this way? Um, no! We did fight! And we fought a lot! We don’t know how our parents survived all the bickering. Poor BDot had to sit in between BigSis and LilSis on our four and a half hour drives to our grandparents’ house.  We always left at 4:30 in the morning because Daddy thought we had a more likely chance to sleep most of the way there. It was all four kids in the back seat with pillows and tons of stuff to do. Not a lot of room.  AND no seatbelts!

We had great childhoods. As kids, we always had plenty to do, and were tired at the end of the day.  We went right to sleep instead of staying up all night texting our friends.  We ate whatever we wanted, but we were tanned and skinny kids since we were so active outdoors.  And, most importantly, we used our imaginations.

Thanks to the great ladies here at WMDA for letting us share. We hope that maybe we’ve stirred up some of your childhood memories.  Is there anything you remember fondly that kids will never know the joy of now?