Category Archives: Things on my mind

Molly’s Birthday and Porch Sitting.

Molly’s birthday was yesterday and I almost forgot it.  I looked on the calendar last night and saw I had almost missed it so I got a big spoonful for peanut butter and took it out to her and said “Happy Birthday, Molly,” and she licked almost all of it off and got it stuck to the roof of her mouth and I started laughing.  She is one year old now.  Almost passed all the puppy stage and all the chewing.  She still brings whole logs from the wood pile up to the back deck and gnaws on them.  I think she is part termite or beaver.

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She has turned into the sweetest dog.  She loves attention and playing with Belle.  As soon as I open the back door, she runs to get something to tease Belle with and the chase begins.  As soon as I go back inside, she drops whatever she has and lays down.  I guess she needs an audience.

Molly has a bark that would scare anyone.  I know I would not go into a yard with a dog that barks like her.  She sounds fierce.   Anyone who comes to our house hears it and wants to know if she will bite. “Only if I tell her to,” I tell them.  I don’t want strangers thinking they are safe to just come into our yard.  She is actually very sweet, but I would not guarantee that she would not bite if she thought I was in danger.  David was hugging me outside the other day and she got very upset and barked.  She also gets anxious when anyone waves their arms and yells.  She gets so excited at seeing anyone her whole back end sways back and forth.

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She loves kids.  She is still a little intimidating to some though because she jumps on them.

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Molly has been a good addition to our family despite all the destruction she did while teething.  David and she are pals.  When he is out in the yard, she ignores me and follows him.  I love her.

I have been sitting on the porch in the evenings.  It’s so relaxing and I can see so many things.  It’s a parade right out in front of our house.  Cars going by, ambulances racing to an emergency, police cars with their sirens blaring going to an accident, people walking, people riding bicycles.  I watch to see how many people are talking on their cell phones while driving.  A lot of them are.  Yesterday I saw a man driving with his left hand holding a phone to his left ear with his right hand while driving.  Now that can’t be safe.  Trains going by.  There doesn’t seem to be as many right now.  One day David counted over a hundred cars on one train.

Everyone who comes to our house to visit finds themselves on the front porch sitting on our swing.  It’s a good gathering place to sit and chat.    Even the children that come love to sit on the swing and  David will swing them real high.

Sometimes I read while I am sitting on the porch.  I use to do that for hours when I was a kid.  There is something about gently rocking back and forth on a swing and reading a book.  The world is shut out as you escape into another one.  I do some of my best thinking on the swing.  Making plans, thinking about family, praying.  Yes, I pray a lot on the porch swing.  I was looking at the clouds yesterday thinking that one day Jesus will return in clouds.  Will I be sitting on the porch swing when He does?   Where will you be?

I think if everyone had a porch swing and sat on it for an hour a day, most of the world’s troubles would pass away.  You can’t be angry while sitting on a porch swing.  I find I feel love for my fellow man as I watch them pass by.  I wonder what their lives are like.  I even pray for them that God is watching over them.  There is so much trouble and sadness in this world.  We all need a little porch sitting to slow us down, calm our nerves and get in touch with the One who created us.  He wants only the best for us.

We have three swings in various parts of our property. I can go anywhere in our yard and find a swing to sit upon, but I love our front porch swing the best because it is my seat onto the world.  Come sit with me and chat a while.  I guarantee you will find it relaxing.  Bye.

 

Forty-Seven Years

For those who are reading this and have not even reached the age of forty yet, you may think forty-seven years is a long time.  When I was young, anyone over twenty seemed old to me.  Then I became twenty and by that time I had been married a year.  I felt pretty grown-up then and was expecting a baby, so I was officially an adult.   Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our forty-seventh wedding anniversary.   Just three years shy of fifty years.  How did we get here?  How did our marriage last when so many marriages fail?

I don’t have any secret formulas.   There were times I could have left my husband because I was immature and was only thinking of myself and how things were affecting me.  I am sure there were times he would have liked to have just shucked it all and given up, but he didn’t and as a man of few words, I never knew if he ever was unhappy. But, we stuck it out.  We stood together through the hard times and now we are reaping some good times and feel it was all worth keeping it all together.

Love has a lot to do with.  I cannot think of a time when I didn’t love my man.  Yes, he can make me exasperated sometimes, but I can be pretty exasperating myself.  We raised three children together and if you have ever raised teen-agers,  you know that can be one of the most stressful times in any marriage.  Teen-agers try their parents and parents need to present a united front, but sometimes it didn’t happen that way and I blame myself for that.   I didn’t like to be the one doling out the discipline, but it usually turned out that way.    We made it through the teen years with a few scars, but our marriage still solidly in tact.  We have watched our children grow into adults, make some pretty poor choices at times and good choices in others, but still making us proud in so many ways and we love them all so much.

Forty-seven years ago I walked down the aisle at a little Methodist church where David and two pastors stood.  We had two pastors because we had just gotten a new pastor and I wanted our old pastor to take part in the ceremony as I had pretty much grown up while he was our pastor.  So both pastors took part in the ceremony.  I was shaking in my white satin shoes and don’t remember a whole lot about it, but suddenly the pastor was saying, “I now pronounce you man and wife.  You may now kiss the bride,” and I knew it was a done deal.

That night we stayed in a little motel on our way to Traverse City, Michigan for our honeymoon.  The next morning the motel owner presented us with a gift of new bed sheets which I thought was so nice.  The honeymoon was spent with David’s relatives and we had the most fun.  Plus I had to keep pinching myself that I was now responsible for myself, I was truly a grownup and free from my parents’ control.  Anything I did after that was going to be on me.  We boated, swam, walked the streets of Traverse City where the Cherry Festival was going on, eating French fries splashed with vinegar.  We went to the city zoo.  I met lots of new relatives.  We ran around all over town in our little Volkswagon bug enjoying the scenery and just being together.  We even got stopped by a policeman because David ran a red light accidently, but he just gave us a warning.

Back to reality and sharing a life together began.  I worked at a Stucky’s saving money to continue college.  David worked at a factory.   We lived in a little apartment in the middle of the small town where I grew up.  There was a pinball room directly below our apartment and we would go down and play pinball.  Then we discovered I was pregnant a month into our marriage and we needed to look for a bigger place to live, so we bought a tiny house outside town in the country and set up housekeeping.  The house had a tiny bedroom, a tiny living room and a tiny kitchen.  I was so proud of it. I enjoyed cleaning it and arranging the furniture as much as it was possible in such a tiny space.  We celebrated our first Christmas there and the next Spring, our first son was born.  Then we had to look for an even bigger house because eight months after the first son was born, we were expecting again!   We found a big house on top of a hill in Richmond and again I set up housekeeping in my bigger house.  We had enough bedrooms for us all.    Then our second son was born and I was busy.  David had begun working for the military by then and was in the military for thirty-seven years.

And so the years passed swiftly.  One year the boys and I went to Grayling, Michigan to camp with David while he attended guard camp for two weeks.   It was there that I had a sneaking suspicion I was pregnant again. I kept telling David I thought I was, but he said I was just imagining things.  Well, he was wrong!  I was, again pregnant and nine months later we had a little girl.  Having a girl was so different from having boys, but I loved it.  Dressing her up in all the cute clothes.   I was so happy on our hill with my three children.  I was also caring for two other children and keeping busy and happy.

Then one day David came home and told me he was being sent someplace else and my world fell apart, or at least I thought it had.  I was going to have to leave friends and family and go some place where I knew no one.  Our children would have to go to a strange school.  I was not happy about the move.   David and I took one weekend to find a new house which is the one where we now live.  I wanted an older fixer upper with some character and some land.  We got it all with this house, but I must say we have been fixing it up for the last thirty-eight years and still have more we want to do.   We made the move and I cried for days.  By and by things got back to normal, I met people and found a church and got the boys in school and they seemed to thrive so all was good.

We have seen so much through the years.  I could write an entire book about our life as a couple and what all we have done together.  We have traveled in almost all fifty states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands,Canada and Mexico.  We raised our three children to adulthood and they are productive members of society.  We have seen loved ones and friends pass away and babies born into the family.  As the song says, “Sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the days.  One season following the other….”   Our seasons have flown by.  Here we are the elders in our family now and we still love life, God and family and look forward to more years together, but if it should all end tomorrow, I can say we have been blest and have had a wonderful life.  Just remember if you are married right now and think you cannot make it to forty-seven or more years, you can if you decide to and learn to love and care for one other person more than yourself.  That is what a wife and husband are to do.  A young man told us the other day that not many marriages make it as far as ours.  I find that sad because all it takes is love, a relationship with Jesus Christ, and a determination that your marriage will not fail. That it is your top priority.   It will all be good if you both do those three things.  Bye.

Feeling the Pain

I have never been a fan of going to the doctor.  I have a really great doctor and I don’t mind so much when I have to go see him.  Right now I am contemplating a trip to the doctor and this is why.

Yesterday David got thirty bags of mulch for the garden.  He was busy with something else, so I proceeded to lift them out of the truck and stack  them.  No problem.  I have stacked hundreds of bags of mulch in the past.

Then, last night I started to bend my left knee and an excruciating pain shot through it, clear up my leg.  Every time I tried bending my knee I was in tears.  I had pinched a nerve or pulled a muscle.  I took pain relievers and a muscle relaxer in hopes of softening the pain a little.

I took a heating pad to bed with me, but I spent the night looking for a comfortable position for my leg.  It was like it was its own entity.  Not a part of my body except for the pain.  I don’t think childbirth was as painful.  I finally ended up in a single bed in our guest room and fell into a restless sleep.

Now today I am sitting in a recliner, unable to bend my knee unless I use my hands to gently raise it.  I had to make baked beans and a cake for a funeral dinner at out church today and I managed that and drove to church, but had to get someone to help me get the baked beans inside.  I felt so puny.  I was so glad I managed to do it as the funeral was for a man I have known ever since we started going to our church thirty some years ago.  He was a godly man and a good man and we will surely miss him.  I am sure they are celebrating his arrival in Heaven.

This afternoon, David and I are going to look at some acreage in Brown county and I am hoping I can walk the property lines to see where it goes.   I am determined to do it as I really would love to own some property in Brown Country which is a wooded, hilly area in our state.   We shall see.  David says if I am not better in a day or so, I will go to the doctor.  I imagine him twisting and turning my knee and me screaming in agony as he does it and I don’t relish the thought.  I am praying the pain will go away before I have to see a doctor.

When I was a little girl, my parents took all us kids periodically to the doctor for polio shots.  Back then it was a real threat.  In fact, one time my parents thought I had polio because I got a very stiff neck and could not look up.  Those were the times when doctors made house calls and Dr. Barton came to our house and put me through a series of neck exercises.  He decided I didn’t have polio, but suggested we all have polio shots and we did.  My sister would tease me about how long the needle was and scare me half to death before I even got into the doctor’s office.  Perhaps that is why I have a slight fear of doctors to this day.

Later, when I was in school, I suffered with tonsillitis quite often.  I was absent from school for six weeks in second grade because I had such severe sore throat problems.  My mother would talk to my teacher and get my homework and I would lay in bed all day eating soup and reading and doing my homework.  I was so glad to get back to school with all my friends.  I still have my tonsils even though the doctor had recommended they be removed.

I am not a good patient and do not like being bedridden or chair ridden as I am now.  Perhaps this is God’s way of slowing me down and having me look to Him.  Anyway, I have empathy with those of you in pain right now.  It isn’t fun.  It’s humbling and there is nothing to be done but endure it.   If you are a praying person, say a little prayer for me that my knee might be healed.  Thank you.

I have sounded like a whiny baby here, but, hey, every day isn’t all sunshine and happy.  Bye.

 

Knee Deep in Summer

I love Summer. Always have.  My first memories of Summer is playing with my brothers in the yard on the swing set I believe Daddy had built.  It was made of wood which is why I believe he built it. I would sit in a swing on that swing set waiting for the school bus to bring my brothers and sister home from school.  Under the big walnut tree, swinging back and forth and watching for the yellow school bus.  Then when I got to go to school, I looked forward to Summers and all the freedom we had as children on the farm to play and explore and help Daddy and Mother with chores and gardening.

I remember one Summer strolling down the gravel road to my sister’s , who lived just about a quarter of a mile from our house, singing “June is Busting Out All Over” from the musical State Fair.  Dogs walking beside me about half way and then they would turn back and go home.  We always had dogs which is why I think I love dogs so much.  Mother did not have to worry about anything happening to me with the dogs along.  My sister lived across from a big woods and anytime I went to visit her, I always made sure I was home before it got dark because the woods spooked my at night.  I just knew something or someone would run out of them and catch me.

Summer was picking strawberries in the garden, gathering eggs,  helping Daddy with the hay bailing by helping put the bales in the big red barn.  He would drive the tractor and wagon stacked with hay bales in through the big center doors of the barn and my brothers would throw the bales up into the hayloft.  I would help by dragging the bales to where they were to be stacked using a kind of hook to grab the bales.  Summer was hours of badminton,  weeding in the garden, playing with new kittens in the barn, playing baseball in the barnyard and taking hikes with my brothers.  It was time for swinging in the porch swing kicking it back and forth as I read a library book.  Playing hide and go seek and kick the can and battle stations( a game my brothers made up where we ran  every time we saw a car coming down our road.) Oh, Summers were wonderful.  It was catching lightening bugs in jars and taking the jar to my bedroom at night and watching them flicker off and on.  It was swimming in the little pond my brothers made by damming up a little stream that ran through my Daddy’s woods.  I never thought of snakes or anything else in the water, it just was fun to play in it. It was playing Davy Crockett at an old cabin behind Daddy’s farm where my brothers and their friends threw walnuts at each other as I hid in the cabin pretending they were Davy Crockett fighting the Indians.

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My mother was a gardener and I got the gardening gene from her.  I love the flowers of Summer.

We have had so much rain the flowers have grown big and blowzy  all over the back yard.  See the new fence David is building to keep Molly Marshmallow out of the garden?  It almost disappears with all the flowers around it

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Bonnie stays near the water bucket on these hot Summer days.  She is twelve years old this Summer.   Seems like we just got her as a pup.

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And what does Miss Molly Marshmallow have in her mouth?  I hope it isn’t another baby rabbit.  She keeps all wildlife out of our backyard which probably is a good thing with all the flowers and vegetables growing there.

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It’s pretty big, isn’t it?

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It’s her chew bone that weighs about two pounds and she carries it around like it was nothing, but as long as she is chewing on it, she isn’t chewing on something she mustn’t.

Because it has been raining so much, I have had some time in my shop working on a few projects.

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This barn quilt.

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A chicken in the barn door.

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Chickens marching across my shop.

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And more chickens.

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I especially love this polka dot chicken.  Everyone needs a polka dot chicken.

 

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Or two.

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I bought a retractable clothes line, they call it a dryer. Ha.  Just have to find some place to hang it now.  I have yearned for the smell of sheets fresh off the line on our bed for a long time.  I will just have to hang them where Molly Marshmallow cannot get to them.

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I baked bread the other day in tiny loaves.  Six of them.  Three were regular bread and the other three were these….

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Cinnamon bread.  Yum, yum and yum.  It didn’t last long around here with David’s sweet tooth, or mine for that matter.  I plan to bake again this Saturday.

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I will leave you with a picture of a big spider web that was built at the top of our back door.  Big enough for David to walk into.  And a poem.

COBWEBS

By E.L.M. King

Between me and the rising sun,

This way and that the cobwebs run;

Their myriad wavering lines of light

Dance up the hill and out of sight.

 

There is no land possesses half

So many lines of telegraph

As those the spider-elves have spun

Between me and the rising sun.

Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When You Adopt a Dog

When you adopt a dog, you suddenly become a parent to a childlike creature who will depend on you for all its needs until the day it dies.

When you adopt a dog, you learn patience, feel stress, get aggravated and spend a lot of your time cleaning up messes.

When you adopt a dog, everything you wear will have dog paw prints on the front of it at one time or another.

When you adopt a dog, you find yourself telling people about it like it was one of your children.

When you adopt a dog you have to get someone to care for it if you ever want to go on vacation or you will need to find a good kennel.

When you adopt a dog be prepared to spend more on its food, toys and vet bills then you spend on yourself in a month.

When you adopt a dog, don’t expect any privacy any longer as they want to be where you are all the time and if they are outdoor dogs, you will have someone staring in the door at you at all times.

When you adopt a dog, be prepared to be sniffed in the most unlikely places.

When you adopt a dog, be prepared for your pantyhose bill to go up.

When you adopt a dog they will watch for you and wait for you just to get a little of your attention.

When you adopt a dog, they are always ready to play.  Unless they are elderly.

When you adopt a dog and love your beautiful lawn, expect it to not be so beautiful after a few diggings.

When you adopt a dog, you will have to clean the yard of all the toys before you mow the yard.

When you adopt a dog, you will still want another one every time you see a puppy.  Do not, and I repeat, do not allow yourself the luxury of looking at or, heaven forbid, smelling a puppy.

When you adopt a dog, they will get their feelings hurt when you adopt a new puppy. Then you must show the older dog more attention.

When you adopt a dog you find yourself in the dog toy department more often than the underwear department.  Thus, you have holey underwear.

When you adopt a dog you look in its eyes and see nothing but love.

When you adopt a dog, you will have someone who trusts you more than anyone else on earth.

When you adopt a dog, expect your heart to be broken when it passes away.  It’s a family member, after all.

When you adopt a dog, you very well might find yourself in a social environment smelling like the dog doo that is on the bottom of your shoes.

When you adopt a dog, don’t expect it to be like the last dog you adopted.  Some dogs are easier than others to raise.  Just like children.

When you adopt a dog, you find yourself looking at the pretty collars and leashes if it’s a girl dog.

When you adopt a dog, you find yourself looking at the pretty collars and leashes if it’s a boy dog.

When you adopt a dog, you may be like me and find a three foot hole in the side of your house.

When you adopt a dog, be prepared to fall in love.

When you adopt a dog, expect to never have clean doors ever again.

When you adopt a dog, you will find yourself worrying about them when you are on vacation.

When you adopt a dog, you will sometimes feel a nuzzle against your hand seeking some loving and you will gladly comply.

When you adopt a dog, a cold, wet nose may startle you at times.

When you adopt a dog be prepared to have a companion for all its life.

When you adopt a dog, part of your heart is taken forever.

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I hope you have experienced the love of a good dog.

Here’s to the dogs in our lives and the love they give to us.  Bye.

Textiles and Me

For as long as I can remember, I have loved textiles and sewing.  My mother gave me an old sock when I was very little and I laboriously hand sewed a little doll from it.  I still have that doll and if I can find it, I will show it to you one day.  I played with that doll, drew a face on it and enjoyed it for a long time.  It wasn’t like I didn’t have other dolls.  I got a doll every Christmas and had a whole family of them, but because I had made this doll, it was special to me. I have been sewing with needles since I could hold one in my hand and know what to do with it.

I remember Mother getting a new Singer sewing machine one year.  She was so proud of that machine and it is on that machine I learned to sew.  Plus having six years of Home Economics where I learned to sew clothes and drapes.  I remember Mother sewing clothes for me.  It was so fun for me to go to JC Penney’s with her and pick out the fabric and coming home and helping to cut out an outfit and Mother sewing it.  I remember a plaid dress,  a red and white dotted swiss dress with a big velvet sash(that I wore to the Ruth Lyons television show in Cincinnati)  and several other outfits.  I always had to have new clothes for the beginning of school, for Easter, for Christmas and other times.  Mother made most of them.  I also got hand me downs from my cousins in Detroit who had very expensive clothes.  To tell you the truth, I didn’t like wearing hand me downs except for my brothers’ pajamas.  Yes, I wore my brothers’ hand me down pajamas and was proud of it.

When I got old enough to be in 4-H I learned to embroider and to do Huck weaving.  I sewed a pillow cover and a dresser scarf(do people use dresser scarves any longer?)  and made dish towels with Huck weaving on them.  I still have those towels.  Yes, I don’t get rid of anything.

The love of textiles grew as I grew. In seventh grade I had a Home Economics teacher, Miss Glunt.  She wore dresses to her ankles and those old lady black shoes you see in old movies.  Her hair was always in a neat bun.  She was a stickler for doing things right.  You had to rip out anything she didn’t think was done properly.  I sewed a Kelly green straight skirt with a matching jacket and a green and white printed blouse in her class.  We had a style show and I was so proud to model that outfit.  In later years I sewed several outfits in Home Ec. One year my very best friend and I went shopping and bought the exact same material, a floral pique and bought the same pattern and we made matching dresses and we got to model them together in the  style show that year.   Now that’s friendship when you are willing to wear the same outfit together!

One year I modeled an empire waist dress.  I remember feeling so beautiful in that dress.  Kind of like Cinderella.  I was not a bit afraid of walking out on stage and modeling that dress, I loved it so much.  I guess you could say I am a model. Ha!

When we had children, I sewed for them.  One year I made myself and one of my sons outfits and we modeled together in a city style show.  It was a contest and I was hoping to win a prize.  I think I got second or third place.

This is just to say, I love textiles.  I love the feel of fabric and yarns.  I can look for hours online at all the beautiful fabrics that are offered on so many sites. How my mother would have loved it.  She never lived to see computers so widely used.  I am trying so hard not to buy any new fabric because I really need to use up what I have which can never be done if I sewed continuously for the next twenty years.   I can’t believe the choices there are and that new ideas just keep coming.   I have favorite fabric designers, but that can change at any time as new ones are always producing new fabrics.

I sewed my own clothes for many years until I got into quilting and sewing clothes went by the wayside.  I sew skirts for myself and recently I sewed a dress, but I don’t like how it fits so not sure how much I will wear it.  I have a couple of favorite blouse patterns that I use occasionally, but that’s the extent of my clothes sewing.

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This is a skirt I am working on.  I have hundreds of old hankies, another textile I love,  and I used one in the pockets on the skirt.  I can make a skirt in an afternoon.  It’s relaxing to sew and I get lost in the making of something that can be of use.

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This is a purse I made for Easter.  It cost me next to nothing as I used odds and ends of felt and fabric I had around my shop.

I have a whole lot more to say about textiles, but I will save it for my next post.  Hope you have some textiles you love in your life.  A favorite blouse, skirt, pillowcase.  Surround yourself with textiles you love.  Bye.

Winter Then and Now

        I get up in the morning from my toasty warm bed, warmed by the heated mattress pad.  I come down the stairs and turn up the thermostat to a warmer temperature.  I then proceed to make a pot of coffee, listen to the news on television and start my day.

I think sometimes of how others long ago woke up on frosty mornings like today and how their day began.  First they would struggle from under their multiple layers of covers ,if they were fortunate to have several blankets, and put their feet on icy floors.  As they scrambled to put on their clothes, they looked out windows with frost upon them.  Then they would have to put wood in the stove or the fireplace.  Wood that they had spent time cutting and stacking the days and weeks before.  The night before they had banked the fire so that it would still have embers in the morning to catch fire.  

As their fire was beginning to burn, they would go outside to the shed where meat might be hanging and cut off some to fry in a pan.  Then they would trudge through banks of snow to the chicken house to gather the eggs before they froze in their nests and bring them in for their breakfast and baking.  They would fill a pot with water and put it on the stove or over the fireplace to heat.  The milk would come later after they milked the cows.

Meanwhile, I have already drank a cup or two of coffee, put my toast in the toaster and taken jam out of the refrigerator.   The house is becoming nice and warm and I can go about my day in comfort.

Our ancestors, meanwhile were still working on making the fire and adding wood to it to make it hotter.  The warmest place in the house was directly in front of the fireplace or stove.  I remember gathering around the stove on frigid winter mornings in our kitchen which was the warmest room in the house.  I was blessed to have a father who had already gotten up early to make the fire so that the house would be warm for his family.

As I go through my day, I don’t worry about keeping warm as the furnace keeps pumping warm air up through the registers and my house is comfortable. 

Our ancestors, however, had to bring in wood from the woodpile several times a day to keep the fire going.  Part of the day was spent splitting wood and stacking it by the door.  Cold foods were kept outside because there was no refrigerator.   I just open a door and there is plenty of food for the day or week. 

Animals had to be fed and watered as they were the family’s livelihood.  Cows had to be milked, chickens fed and eggs gathered, pigs fed and bales of straw spread for beds for the animals.

I get my milk from the refrigerator and remember the times when my daddy had to go out in the cold winter mornings to milk the cows.  Cows needed to be milked every day.  We drank the good cow’s milk after Mother pasteurized it in the pasteurizer.   

Not a day goes by in winter that I don’t think about how easy I have it compared to those who lived long before me.  Roads are quickly cleared now so that people can get into their warm cars and go where they want to go.  Years ago people had to harness their horses or mules and get in their wagons or sleighs to go anywhere.  Roads were not cleared for them, nor did they expect them to be.   We complain if the roads aren’t cleared within hours of a snow storm.

  Every winter about this time, I read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, The Long Winter.  It reminds me how hard it use to be in the winter for people.  Laura’s family had to heat their house with twisted straw as the long winter commenced because all the wood was gone.  They had no way to get food because the train could not get through to bring supplies to their little town on the prairie.  People were starving and they could not even find anything to hunt.  Finally, Almanzo Wilder, Laura’s one day to be husband, and another man took out across the prairie to find a man that was rumored to have a large supply of wheat.  They were to go there and bring some back for the townspeople.  It was a very exciting trip they had.  They made it before the next blizzard came through and saved the  townspeople from starving to death.

As night draws nigh, I take a bath in a warm tub and heat my pajamas in the dryer before I put them on.  Then at bed time I get back into my nicely heated bed and go to sleep.

My ancestors had to bank the fire, be sure that all the animals were in for the night.  They had to haul water for their baths, heat it beforehand, and afterward they got into their icy cold beds and probably slept as soundly as I do.   I am so thankful I don’t have to worry about where my heat is coming from in the morning or work so hard to get my food.  I thank my ancestors for being the hardy people they were. 

Think about your ancestors when you get up in these cold, winter mornings and thank God you don’t have to do all they had to do just to survive.  Here’s to hardy ancestors.  Bye.

My Valentine

Valentine (val’an tin’) n. A sweetheart chosen or greeted on this day.                       David is my valentine.  Has been ever since that day in my junior year of high school I saw him sitting at the Dairy Queen smoking a cigarette, sitting there in his leather jacket looking oh, so handsome.  I started dating him soon after, was going steady in a week with his class ring and two years later we were engaged.  A year after that, after he had done his military training, we were married.   Here we are, forty-seven years later, and he still is the only one for me. On Valentine’s Day we are bombarded with advertisements of jewelry, flowers, strawberries, teddy bears and other things that husbands or boyfriends are suppose to buy for the woman in their lives to make them happy.  Long ago I told David I did not want to be one of those women who get angry when their man doesn’t come through on Valentine’s Day with presents.  I knew pretty soon in our relationship that I wasn’t with the most romantic guy in the world when he brought me a box of candy the day after Valentine’s Day.  I thought it was so funny at the time and every year I have low expectations.  That said, David has proven to me daily that he loves me.  He shows me in so many ways.

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I love Valentine’s Day because of its meaning and I love decorating for it.  David indulges me in my love.

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He went out and bought these pretty flowers for our dining room table.

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I bought Valentine candy and cards that I like.

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I made fabric hearts and filled them with candy. Then I started looking at all the things that are red in our house that make me happy.

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The little iron I played with when I was a little girl.  I could plug it into an outlet and it would get warm, not hot.  I would stand alongside of my mother as she ironed and iron on my little ironing board.

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Tootsie Roll pops. My favorite.

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These will go on cupcakes I am going to bake this weekend.

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My table set up for the  Bible study group.

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Yes, Valentine’s Day is a special day.  When you can’t wait to see your husband walk through the door each day, it’s Valentine’s Day.  When your husband or boyfriend completely surprises you with something so out of character for them, it’s Valentine’s Day.  When you are sick and your husband brings you Sprite to drink and goes to get your medicine, it’s Valentine’s Day.  When you just don’t feel like cooking one day and your husband says, “let’s go out to eat,”  it’s Valentine’s Day.   When it’s cold out and the chickens need to be checked on and your husband gets out in the cold to do it, it’s Valentine’s Day.  When something breaks and your husband repairs it saving you both hundreds of dollars, it’s Valentine’s Day.  When you are married to your true Valentine, every day it’s Valentine’s Day.  Love you David.  With all my heart. Here’s hoping you have a Valentine in your life. If not, be one to someone else.  Bye.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It is, you know.  The most wonderful time of the year.  The season of giving and peace and love.  Oh,  you look around the world and see all the evil that is going on, but what you don’t see very often because it doesn’t make a good news story, is the good that is going on.  The nurse in the hospital who gives a lonely patient a little extra time and patience, the boy on your street who helps his elderly neighbor clear the snow off her walk,  the man who pays the tab for a soldier eating at the next table in a restaurant,  a teen-ager who calls his grandma and asks about her day.  There is a lot of bad, but if you look, you will see the good also.  There will always be sin in this world.  Jesus said there would be wars and rumors of wars.

We can all make this world a little bit better.  It’s the small things that count.  A smile, patience for that slow driver in front of you, a kind word, a pat on the back, a hug.  What if everyone decided that they were not going to be the problem, but the answer?  That we would all decide we would get along with our neighbor, that we would look on the bright side of things for a change, that your life really isn’t so bad if you can get up in the morning and do something for others.  It’s time to stop being so self-centered.  To stop wondering when things are going to get better.  You can make them better.

I decided quite a long time ago that I was not going to look at the glass half empty.  My glass is always half full.  If I don’t feel well one day I think I am no better than anyone else and cannot escape the trials of man and accept it.  I have lived through tragedies, sadness, pain, separation, and most of the other human ills.  We all must face these things at some time in our lives.  It is how you face them that counts.  I know people who have the most awful diseases who wear a smile on their faces in their adversity.  There is one thing they have.  They have Jesus in their heart.  It makes a difference, you know.  At this season rest in the knowledge that God loved us all enough that He came down to earth as a tiny baby and lived among us for a time.  He died a wretched death on the cross and took every one of our sins upon Himself.  He died but He arose the third day and now lives in heaven.  One day He will come back for those who believe in Him.  I believe.  He makes my life complete.

I love Christmas because I can give presents to friends and family.  I love making gifts and this year I went all out.  I can’t show most of what I have made, but I have already given some things away so those I will show.

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I made felt ice skates for the children in my Sunday school class and filled them with candy and little toys and stickers.

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I have a friend who loves cats so I made her this little ornament out of felt.

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The lady I help in Sunday school got this because I told her she was an angel.

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Another friend keeps bees so, voila!  When I found this pattern I immediately thought of her.

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I was on a roll and made another ornament.  I may make more before I’m done.  I love working with felt.

I’ve been knitting up a storm too.

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Hats and scarves for the children in my Sunday school class.

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A year or so ago, a nice lady from my church gave me a big bagful of quilt blocks, embroidery floss, a whole quilt that she had cross stitched and several other goodies.  She said she gave it to me because she knew I would get some good out of it since I love to quilt.  There were enough of these school house blocks to make a full size quilt  So, I did.  I asked her who had made the blocks and she told me her grandmother.  I knew I could not keep this quilt for myself.  It belonged in her family so this Sunday I gave it to her.  It made me so happy to see her smile.  The quilt was probably started in the 1950’s and now sixty some years later it is finished and the family can enjoy it for years to come.

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I think my brothers had pajamas made from material like this back in the day.

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There were plaid blocks.

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One block was made with a satin or crepe de chine.  Is that spelled right?

Yes, I have been a busy beaver.  And I have enjoyed every bit of the making.

In other news.  Molly Marshmallow continues to grow and grow.

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Doesn’t she look adorable here?  Wellllllll.  This dog loves wood.  She chews on wood every chance she gets.  She has chewed on our house, around the windows, the wooden deck benches.  She goes out in the yard and drags up pieces of wood and chips them like a beaver all over our back deck.  She climbs on top of the woodpile, I don’t know why.  Maybe she is planning on working her way down it.  Anyway, today I took hot sauce and a brush and painted it all over the back of our house.  Molly immediately started licking it up.  Finally she decided maybe it wasn’t so good.  I am going to hot sauce everything I don’t want her to chew.  She loves chewing the heels of my shoes as I walk so on will go the hot sauce.  I hope I have found the remedy to her constant chewing.  It’s not like she doesn’t get toys and rawhide bones to chew.  I just hope she outgrows this affinity for wood and me.  I still love her, though and get a lot of laughs from her antics.  If you walk by me and I smell like hot sauce, you will know why.

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I look at this face and I cannot stay angry with her.  She is a puppy and chewing is what puppies do.

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My Santa rests on the couch before the big day.  He’s been asked at the store for stickers and other toys.  Little children think he’s the real thing.

A big package came to our front door the other day.  David and I had gone to a Christmas party and when we came home there was this box sitting on our front porch.

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It was for me!!!!!!

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Do not open until Christmas.  Oh, no!  I feel like a kid again waiting for the big day.

I knew it had to be from someone I knew who knew I liked chickens because this was on the package……

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A rooster made out of what looks like an old quilt.  Interesting.  Hmmmmmmm.  Well, I guess I will just have to wait until Christmas until I can open it.

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Couldn’t let Christmas go by without dressing up one of the hens for the season. This is Ada and she’s the only one who will allow me to pick her up now.  She got a little squirrely toward the end of the photo shoot and finally flew out of my arms, but David got a good picture of her.

 

Must go.  Just four more days.  Hope you are ready.  It will come whether you are ready or not.  See you on the other side.  Merry Christmas.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

Dusting Out the Cobwebs and Christmas Thoughts

Whew, is the time going as fast for you as it is for me?   My blog has a few cobwebs from being neglected for several days.  I have stories to tell and pictures to show, but I have been extremely busy or at least it seems like the days are going by so fast that I think I must have been busy.   While we were getting the tree set up today, David and I were commenting on how it just seemed like we had put it away.  The years are starting to run together now and time is speeding up.  I don’t know if God is winding the world down and getting ready to send His Son, but it seems something is happening.

I have noticed a strange, but lovely glow lately.  I got up the other morning and rays of light were streaming in the upstairs windows.  Not your ordinary streams of light.  Very different.  I went downstairs and the same thing was happening there.  I just stared at it and thought to myself, God is getting ready for something.

As we prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth I have a fear that there are too many who don’t believe Jesus is God’s Son and that He was sent here specifically to die for all mankind as a human sacrifice for all our sins.  He really lived on earth and talked about His Father in heaven and taught us how we should love one another.  But, did you know Jesus talked about hell more than he talked about heaven?  He does not want one person to go there, but sadly, many will.  And it won’t be anyone’s fault but their own.  God does not send anyone to hell, they send themselves.  I know this is deep stuff for the Christmas season, but it makes me think of why Jesus came to earth as a tiny baby in a manger over two thousand years ago and though after He became an adult, He only preached and taught for three years,  He made such a huge impact on the world that He is still touching people’s lives today.  No man who has lived before or since has made such a difference to the world.

As we prepare to celebrate His birth, put aside the presents, the tree, the lights, the sometimes goofy Christmas movies and think about this man whose life has touched us all in some way.  He even touches atheists lives because they spend so much of their time denying Him and trying to get Him out of the public arena.  Funny that.  To try to get a man’s name removed that they don’t even believe in.  Jesus did live on earth.  Many witnesses attested to that fact.  Many saw His cruel death on the cross and then the empty tomb.  No one ever saw His grave because you know what?  There isn’t any.  He rose from the dead and now sits at the right hand of his Father in heaven.  One day, and it could be very soon or it could be a thousand years from now,(since a day is like a thousand years to God)  He will return and take those of us who believe in Him to Heaven to live with Him forever.  Because of God’s timing, Jesus has only been back in Heaven for two days so it may be a few more of His days before He returns.

I am thankful God sent His only Son just for us because He loves us so much.  You, me, everybody.  I love the Christmas season just because of that.  If it weren’t for Jesus, it would be an empty holiday for me.  Some say, well, Jesus was probably born in the Springtime.  Perhaps, but December 25 is when Christians have chosen to celebrate His birth and I can accept that.  Some have made a mockery of the holiday.  Some think it’s just about presents.  But it is much more important than that. Giving gifts is fun and represents the greatest gift God gave us all.  But if next year, I did not get one gift or could not buy one gift for another, I would still celebrate Christmas for its true meaning.  Some say it’s a pagan holiday.  Perhaps at one time it was.  Some still treat it as such, but for Christians around the world it is a holy day.  One to remember the greatest gift of all.

I will soon be sharing a Christmas story from when I was a girl in the fifties.  Christmas has always been special to me and always will be.  A light shines at this time of year that doesn’t shine at other times.  Enjoy it for what it is.  A special time for family and friends.  A time to remember loved ones with whom you shared Christmases past.  A time of joy for those who truly believe.  Peace, love, joy and Merry Christmas.  Bye.