Monthly Archives: March 2016

A New Day and An Old House

  We celebrated Easter this past weekend.   Resurrection Day for Christians all around the world when we celebrate the resurrection of the living Christ who died on the cross for every single person on earth.  Took all our sins upon Himself so that no one  would perish.  All one needs to do is accept Him as your Savior and you are saved for all eternity.  How wonderful is that? 

I love Easter and all it means.  But I also love all the renewal in nature with the trees budding, the flowers growing and the birds nesting and making new families.  I love to be with family on Easter and have a big dinner and an Easter egg hunt for the kids.   We had seventeen at our table this Easter.  Friends and family and I felt so absolutely blessed.

 

We had a big Easter egg hunt.  We put money signs in some eggs and candy signs in others and the children had to turn their eggs in for money or candy.

DSCN3022

They were all excited about the money.  Yes, money wins over candy, but not by much.

Here they are ready to start the hunt.  We made it a little harder to find the eggs this year as they all found them way too fast last year and they are all getting bigger so we wanted them to be challenged.  One hundred and seventy eggs to find.

DSCN3026

And the race was on for the eggs.  We hid them in the front yard, in the back yard, in the side yard and in the tiny woods next to our house.

 

 

DSCN3027

When the hunt was finished, they all lined up according to age and Grandpa counted their money out and they picked out their candy and I think they were all excited and happy to receive their prizes.  I told David that next year I want to make it bigger than ever.

DSCN3032

 

DSCN3033

And as in past years, we had a contest to see who would get in the pool first.  It was 54 degrees cold.  All the boys(and that big boy)  jumped in the pool.  Immediately they all ran for the hot tub.

DSCN3029

Fifty-four degrees to one hundred and one degrees in five seconds.  I think these two were numb from the cold.

DSCN3034

The biggest boy of all had to get in also.

Yes, it was a blessed and fun Easter.  I am so thankful we can have this time together to make memories.

And in other news.  I love old houses.  Our house is over one hundred years old and I love everything about it.  Yes, it can be drafty and hard to keep dusted and it’s not open concept like so many people want nowadays.  Yes, it’s a lot of work and we have spent a lot of money through the years to make it up to date and liveable, but we would rather have this old house than any new one.

We had a beautiful older house right next door.  It belonged to a doctor who had his office in it.  When we first moved here, his office was a bustling business.  People in and out all day.  He was an OBGYN and everyone I met through the years knew of someone whose baby had been delivered by him.  He and his wife were nice neighbors.  They let us use their yard when we were building our pool for all the equipment needed to build it to come through their yard.  They even gave us flowers for a gift for our pool.   Then he closed his office and retired and they moved to a house not far away, but kept this old house. Every week they would come and mow the yard and clean up around the house.  They would pick up their mail every day. But the house stood empty for years.  One time some kids broke into the house and David went over and caught them and we called the police, but the doctor and his wife let them off.  They were nice people like that.  So through the years the house stood there.  David and I wondered what would become of it.  Would some family buy it and bring it to life again?  Would it become a business?  One time David offered to buy it for our quilt shop, but it was the family home so it wasn’t for sale.

DSCN3039

It was a beautiful old house. Notice I wrote, “was.”

DSCN3036

For the almost thirty-nine years we have lived next door I could look out any of our southern facing windows and see this beautiful old house.  There was something comforting about it.  Knowing it had stood there for years sheltering families and a doctor’s office.

DSCN3040

A grand old home with a big front porch.    But then…….

DSCN3037

This pulled into the side yard the other day.  David and I speculated what was going to happen.  David thought they were going to dig a new sewer system.  I had a premonition that the old house was going to be torn down.  Sadly, I was right. It seems the house was uninsurable and had to be torn down for liability reasons.

So yesterday I woke up and heard a noise next door I wish I would never have heard.  The sound of an old house dying.

DSCN3042

Piece by piece, it was torn apart and the pieces put in a huge dumpster.  It would take eight dumpsters to haul away all the pieces.

DSCN3052

I get tears in my eyes just looking at this picture and realizing this house will be no more.

DSCN3046

How quickly decades of living and memories can be all wiped away.  A house is built and families come and go in it and it holds all the memories.  Where do the memories go when the house is gone?  Who will remember the things that went on in this house?   Who will remember the people?  I know I will remember Doc and his wife for as long as I live.

DSCN3081

Finally the last vestige of the house remains.  But it can’t withstand the machine pushing it down.

DSCN3087

A final push and it’s over.

While watching the house going down, David and I noticed all the things left inside.  It was almost as if Doc just up and left everything in it and locked the door.

DSCN3091

Clothes hanging in a closet upstairs.  Some look like army uniforms.  Probably from the second world war.   Why did no one want them?

DSCN3092

Painted cabinets and beautiful woodwork and wallpaper.  I wish I could have gone through this house before it was demolished.

DSCN3072

A coffee pot and medical records.  David found one that blew out and it was dated 1932.

DSCN3062

A sign on the wall about the first year’s growth of a baby.

DSCN3069

An old wooden cabinet.    Someone could have torn this out and used it.

DSCN3051

I saw this old door and really wished I could have gone in to save it, but in the dumpster it went.

DSCN3050

Beautiful old wallpaper.

DSCN3055

The old house sat in a big yard.  A yard my children and the neighborhood children played in years ago. Doc was nice about letting kids play in his big back yard.  Baseball games, kite flying, walking dogs.  There was even a “secret” gate into the adjoining field that my grandchildren loved to look for and go through.   Yes, many memories surround this house for our family.  My daughter played under a big old mulberry tree with two neighbor girls.  Neighbors met in the field to talk.  Now most of the neighbors are gone and now the house is too.

DSCN3093

I don’t want to remember the house like this.   Just like a person I have loved who has died, I want to remember them in the prime of their life.  That is how I will remember this house.

DSCN3036

Beautiful and stately with redbuds blooming around it.   Good-bye, old house.

Here’s to the hope of Easter and dear old houses.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Month of Many Memories

March is one of my favorite months.  Probably because it’s my birthday month and I kind of celebrate it all month long.  I had a cake.

DSCN2965

I got to eat out with some of my favorite people and I got some gift certificates.  Always love that.

David and I took a weekend off and just did what we wanted.  Ate out, relaxed, saw three movies and had a very nice couple of days.   We think we enjoy that as much as we do taking a long vacation.  We will probably do a few more of these weekends this year.  We have one planned to go to Cincinnati in May where I am going to a book signing of one of my favorite bloggers.  If you read Susan Branch’s blog, you know what I’m talking about.  I love her blogs especially the ones where she wrote about Downton Abbey.

I bought myself some new fabric. Seems like every March I do this.

DSCN2968

Love getting new fabric. I don’t have a clue what I will make with this yet, but it will be used, I am sure.

DSCN2970

Love these little flowers.

DSCN2976

Decided to complete this child’s quilt I started last winter.

DSCN2979

 

DSCN2980

DSCN2978

Each block has a picture of a child playing.

DSCN3016

Among all the getting ready for Easter and company Sunday, I did get this pinned today. I also made potato salad, cleaned the chicken house, mulched some of the garden, did two loads of laundry, did the ironing, fed the dogs and chickens, moved bags of mulch, prepared supper for David and myself and then I collapsed on the sofa and have not gotten up since!  Oh, yes, I mixed up a batch of sugar cookies too.

DSCN3015

Meanwhile the dogs want me to play with them.  I try to give them some play time with me every day, but today, not so much.  Sorry girls.

DSCN2989

‘”Then I just won’t look at you, Mom.”

DSCN2959

The hens are finally laying again. They went through a few weeks that we were fortunate to get an egg a day.   But now, we have them coming out our ears.  The eggs taste like butter, I’m telling you.  So rich and yellow.

DSCN2987

They have been fertilizing my garden area all winter so I should have a great garden this year.  I think I am just going to plant pumpkins and tomatoes.  I have about fifty tomato plants started with some ready to plant outside when the weather is warmer.

DSCN2985

Chickens still love their “crack.”

DSCN2984

They’ll follow me anywhere when I have a bowl of this in my hand.

DSCN2967

I got this quilt pinned this month.  I’m going to quilt it on the sewing machine.

DSCN2966

I just got a brochure in the mail this week for a quilt magazine and this very quilt was in it.  All finished. I hope I get this finished in a few weeks.

DSCN2993

I’m still knitting.  When I get frustrated trying to knit socks, I knit another scarf.   I’m trying to use up all my old yarn.

DSCN2995

Speaking of socks, I got the heel flap knitted on this sock and then something horrible happened and I ended up tearing out the whole sock.  That makes about six times I have tried to make a sock.

DSCN2996

I’m almost afraid to tell you about this sock because it’s the farthest I have gotten on one.  I knitted the heel flap, turned the heel, picked up stitches(Oh, that was horrendous) and am knitting the gussets now.  I am seeing a very dim light at the end of the tunnel, but until I get a sock finished I am not going to crow.  Even with all the ripping out and starting over, I quite enjoy knitting socks.  I just have to finish one. When I do, you all will be the first to know besides David, as he has been keeping up on my progress and encouraging me when I get all flummoxed.  When learning to knit socks, you need an encourager beside you so you don’t give up.

Spring has sprung in Indiana.  It takes me by surprise every single year.  One day it’s all grey and dark and the next tiny green leaves are sprouting from the ground and on the trees and bushes.

DSCN3003

The Nanking cherry bushes bloomed first and early this year.  They are already almost gone, boo hoo.

DSCN3012

DSCN3009

Our two dwarf magnolias are just about to burst into bloom.  The magnolias around us and in town have already been blooming for a week or two.

DSCN3010

DSCN3011

DSCN3013

Daffodils blooming everywhere.  I have planted hundreds of them through the years and they really are beautiful this year.

DSCN3000

One of my top five favorite flowers.  It’s a shame they only bloom in Spring, but I’ll take them whenever I can get them.

DSCN3020

DSCN3019

I really need to divide these flowers.  August Lilies or Magic Lilies. They won’t flower until August after all the foliage has died.  Looks like we will have a lot of flowers in August.

DSCN2997

My Spring angel by Jim Shore.

DSCN2998

Holding a bird in her hand.  The birds are nesting and singing their hearts out.

Happy Spring and have a blessed Easter.  He is risen.  Halleluhah!!  Bye.

 

 

 

Love, Joy and Sorrow

This past weekend was my birthday weekend.  David and I had planned a getaway to northern Ohio to visit my brother and sister-in-law and go antiquing and sight seeing, but life got in the way.

Two weeks ago one of my favorite aunts passed away and she didn’t have a funeral so this past Saturday there was a memorial for her.  Most of her family got together to remember her.  There were pictures that made me cry.  She was my mother’s sister and my mother has been gone for a long time so to see her in pictures with her three sisters was a little sad.  Her two sons and daughter got up and spoke about their mother.  I don’t know how they did it. I would have been a basket case to do something like that, but they did wonderfully and I learned things about my aunt I didn’t know.  It was a day of nostalgia and remembering the good times and visiting with family I haven’t seen in years.  Two of my cousins were born about the same time I was and we always have felt a little close because of that even though we hardly ever see each other.  I met a second cousin who was named after my great-grandmother, Kate Driggs, just like I am.   We spoke for a while and she told me things about Grandma Kate I had never heard before.  I wish people would write their family history down because once people are gone, it’s lost forever.   As I get older I realize there are fewer and fewer people who remember me when I was a child.    I remember going to grandpa’s when the cousins were there and when it rained my cousin, Cathy, and I would put on bathing suits and stand under the rain gutters.  My cousin, Tim, and I would walk all over town talking and getting into trouble(not really) and having fun together.  It was always a special time at Grandpa’s when the cousins were there.

Sunday we were with family once again.  We went to eat at Scotty’s restaurant.  I have never eaten there before so was looking forward to it.  As we got near the door, two little boy bodies came bursting out of the door and enveloped me in hugs and as I tried getting into the door, my other three grandchildren came up and hugged me.  Nothing makes me happier.  It was so nice having them all together.  We had a nice meal and spent two hours talking and it went so fast.  The only thing I had against the place was they had these tall chairs and I had a dickens of a time trying to get up on one with my sore, short legs, but I finally made it with much coaxing from family members!

After a weekend of doing absolutely nothing but visiting and resting, I decided today to try to get some work done. As it was nice outside, I raked the yard and tried cleaning up all the things the dogs had scattered around the yard.  Our back yard looked like a junkyard dog lives there.  And she does!  Molly had brought up a few pieces of wood and chewed them up all over our back deck, so I got that cleaned up.  I transplanted some tomato plants I am growing into larger pots.  I did some ironing and made soup beans.  I fed and watered the chickens and gathered the eggs and cleaned up the garden area where the chickens play.  It felt good to get a few things done after such a lazy weekend.  I don’t do well with lazy usually.  I have to be doing something.

Last night I watched the last episode of Downton Abbey and it was like getting a wonderful gift wrapped in a big bow and sent with love.   I loved every minute of it.  Sure am going to miss it.  How can anyone top Downton Abbey?  I don’t think it’s possible. Just like no one could make another Gone With the Wind.  Things like these only come around once in a great while.

Hope you had a nice weekend.  Bye.

 

Cozy and Content

The last few weeks of Winter are quickly passing.  I was looking forward to Winter, surprisingly, this year as I had a lot of projects I wanted to complete before warm weather.  I have finished three quilts since the beginning of the year which is good for me.  Small quilts, though.  Not king size like I have been making.   I have managed to clean out drawers that haven’t been touched in, gulp, years and found a boy scout flashlight that belonged to one of our boys.  It’s surprising what you will find around our house if you look.  We have closets full of old stuff from the sixties and seventies.   With three children growing up in this old house and me as a collector, things have managed to pile up.  I’m not a hoarder, though.   Everything is put away and has its place.  I just have to find it!

Today it is raining and the house feels so cozy.   I wish you could hear the rain beating on the metal roof of our front porch.  I love the sound.  I told David if we ever built our little house in the woods I want it to have exposed beams and a metal roof so we could lay abed and listen to the rain overhead.

The weather has been topsy turvy the past few weeks.  First we have this…….

DSCN2930

Then we have sixty degree days.  On those warm days David and I have been cleaning up the yard.  It’s nice to get out and work in the sun and clean up debris in the yard and find all the flowers that are starting to peep through the ground.  I think we are going to have a beautiful Spring this year with all the daffodils, magnolias, azaleas, and other plants blooming.  We planted two more flowering trees last year so I am looking forward to seeing how they will look.

I am already planning my garden and what more flowers I want to plant this year. More hydrangeas, I think.  Another tree, perhaps.  Pumpkins and tomatoes are all I am planting in the vegetable garden this year.  With just David and me, it’s too time consuming to put up so much food that we won’t eat.  I have fought the critters who come and eat my beans for years and when I can buy a can of beans almost as cheaply as I can put up my own, it seems silly for me to waste my time.  I really don’t think home canned beans taste much better than store canned beans if you cook them with a little bacon fat and onion and I always put garlic salt on ours and they are very good.

I have been sewing some dolls for Samaritan’s purse.  Samaritan’s purse is an organization headed by Rev. Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, that fills shoeboxes for Christmas for children around the world. The boxes are filled with toys, school supplies, candy, clothes and anything that can be stuffed inside them.  These boxes are handed out to the children at Christmas time.  Our church has been filling shoeboxes for years.   Here are my little dolls.

DSCN2945

I designed them myself and each has his or her own personality.

DSCN2941

For instance, Rose, who wears her floral hat quite beautifully.

DSCN2937

Mary, who is so proud of her new glasses.

DSCN2939

Frankincense, Frank for short.

DSCN2936

I hope some children will find them fun.  They all come with their own little quilts too.

DSCN2957

I finished quilting my chick quilt.   I love, love, love it.  It’s so darn cute and I could make another one.

Oh, I did.

DSCN2946

This one is ready to be quilted.  In blacks, reds, greys and pinks.  I love how it turned out.  It’s a small one.

DSCN2948

These chicks were so much fun to sew.   They can become addictive to make.DSCN2947

Lori Holt, who designed the pattern, really came up with something entirely too cute for words.

DSCN2932

This is the third quilt I made and it is completed. I hand quilted most of it.

DSCN2933

Looks so nice on the back of a chair in my girly room.

DSCN2931

Yes, you may come and sit on this chair and visit.

With the days still chilly and needing comfort food, I baked this week.

DSCN2934

Apple crunch.  One of my favorite desserts because it is so easy and quick to  prepare and David loves it.

DSCN2935

Cracker Barrel biscuits with dried beef gravy.   I don’t mean to brag, but my biscuits are better than any I have ever eaten at Cracker Barrel or anywhere, for that matter.  I make them extra thick and they are so good.  Definitely don’t last long around here which is why I only make them occasionally.  They are wonderful with strawberry jam or blackberry jam on them.  I am making myself hungry.

Hope your days are filled with comfort and contentment.  Remember it’s the little things that really do count.  Count your blessings.  You may have more than you realize.  Bye.