a shelter from the storm

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?" ~ William A. Ward

2012-01-26T17:30:00.000-08:00

I have no specific reason for the photo on here this evening. It doesn't illustrate what I'm going to write about because, to be totally honest with you, I'm so sleepy tonite as I sit here I have no idea what I'm going to write about. It was taken from the back deck of my son's house just before dawn on a very frigid morning last week. I am continually amazed at the quality of the pictures my little Android phone's camera takes. It captured the various shades of blue in the sky and on the snow just as they looked in the viewfinder. And it looks every bit as peaceful and serene as it was out there that morning. We've been here in Michigan for almost 11 months and I have taken photos from their back deck thru every season now. Each has had its own exquisite beauty, from the bare limbs of winter silhouetted against a crystal cold sky to the gold and russet leaves in the canopy of autumn. How people can look at scenes like this and not appreciate God's hand in its creation mystifies me.

I didn't look at the date of my last post. Sometimes I hate to, when I know it's been a while since I've written. I can only say the busyness of daily life has been overwhelming me and not leaving me with much time at the end of the day before it's time to collapse into sleep so deep I marvel I even awaken in the morning. But it's a good busyness, being with the grandboys. I realized the other day it's been at least a couple of months now since Cooper, the younger one, has thrown a major temper tantrum. Hopefully I'm not jinxing myself by mentioning that here because when he decides to throw one, he throws a whopper. But the last few times he has I've found something so simple in dealing with them I kick myself and wonder why I didn't think of this a year or so ago. I pick him up, take him into the extra bedroom, gently lay him on the carpet, and tell him quietly, "You can come out when you can be a good boy." Then, amidst the screaming, the tears, and flailing arms and legs, I turn, leave the room, and pull the door shut behind me. That usually triggers off even more squawking and screeching...but Dylan and I go about our business in the living room totally ignoring him. I can hear the temper slowly fade away. And sometimes I can hear him rummaging around in the toy box talking to himself before he decides to crack open the door an inch and calls out, "Gram, I can be a big boy now!" So we welcome him back into our little circle, all of us acting like nothing has happened, and he's good as gold. Go figure.

Every now and then I scroll down my blog page here and look at the cities around the world where visitors who read my blog come from. Sometimes, just by the name of a town or city, I'll know it's a friend who's come to read. Most often, tho, the cities and towns from around America and the world are towns and cities I've never heard of. Tonite I spotted Oakville, Ontario, Canada. Before I moved to the Midwest I'd never heard of it before. But I know now it's not too far from Kitchener where I've visited several times. I see a city from The Netherlands who visits regularly tho I have no idea who that might be because they've never commented on here to my knowledge. And while a dear friend was visiting her homeland of Norway last year, I saw the city of Stavanger several times and thought it was her. But she said no, she never got a chance to read while she was traveling. I thought that was a pretty funny coincidence! My little map is dotted with red spots all over the world...over 17,000 just in the last year. I can't imagine why they all stop here but I'm so glad they do. Not the mega-numbers of blogs like "Pioneer Woman" but enough to make me feel like "You like me! You really like me!" Ha...poor Sally Field will never live that down, but I know how she feels. It's the readers who validate who we writers are, especially the ones who come back over and over again. You know they wouldn't take the time, not with the millions of blogs out there, if they didn't like what they were reading. I read somewhere a few years ago in the height of the blog-writing frenzy that a new blog was created every second of the day. If you had one visitor you were lucky. So I consider myself lucky.

I don't know if there's such a thing as Blog Reader Appreciation Day...there seems to be one for everything else in life. I think I'll take it upon myself to make it so, at least here on my blog today. Many of you have been with me from the beginning when I first stumbled and bumbled my way into the blogosphere almost 7 years ago. Some of you are newly arrived. All of you are special to me...you didn't have to stay here and read once you landed on my page but I'm so glad you did. I've only used a small portion of my allotted 86,400 seconds to say it, but "thank you". Sincerely. From the bottom of my heart.

No one ever really dies as long as they took the time to leave us with fond memories. ~ Chris Sorensen

2012-01-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like the death of a close friend or loved one as far as making us realize our own vulnerability and how little control we truly have over our own lives. We received news this morning that a very dear friend of Dear Hubby's passed away yesterday due to ongoing complications he'd suffered since having back surgery a few weeks ago. In the process he'd suffered a stroke, which is something Dear Hubby is morbidly afraid of in regards to his own family history. Also, this friend and Dear Hubby are almost the same age. When I got on Facebook and notes from friends verified the seriousness of a message Dear Hubby woke up to find on his phone this morning:... "I've got really bad news!" from a mutual friend...Dear Hubby went off in another room and cried like his heart was breaking. This friend had called Dear Hubby just a day or two before he'd gone in to have the back surgery, asking for prayer. The last time Dear Hubby saw him was last summer when he'd flown into Portland and G had come out to pick him up at the airport.

He'd asked me to send G a Get Well card right after the surgery. Usually I am very good about doing things like that. And even tho it isn't an excuse, in the busyness of the holidays and everyday life here, I had forgotten to do so. This morning Dear Hubby said to me, "I hope in the future, when I ask you to do something like that for me, next time you don't forget." He didn't mean it the way I took it but I was a bit offended by that statement. I try to do the best I can with the limited free time I have...and why can't men just DO something like that for themselves? But the heat of the moment passed and I know he was feeling badly because the card never did get sent to G. I felt badly, too. Dear Hubby made a very valid point, tho. He said we all need to act upon feelings when we feel them. That's very true. Little did we know G wouldn't make it. In one of the Wyatt Earp movies, where Val Kilmer played Doc Holliday, as he lay dying of consumption he made a remark about not having many friends in his lifetime but Wyatt Earp had truly been one of his. That line has stuck with both Dear Hubby and I ever since we heard it. I know I wrote a blog entry recently about people who are well loved and then die feeling like they have no friends. I think that is the biggest vulnerability in all our lives, never knowing how many really do love and care for us. If only we'd take the time more often to tell not only family but dear friends just how much they mean to us.

Myself included.

They say that the eye is the window to the soul. But it is the soul that is the window. ~ Andrew Hamilton

2012-01-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

I had kind of a strange thought the other day as I sat watching my oldest grandson playing a wrestling video game. Video animation has improved to the point where, if you come in unawares to a room where someone is playing a game, you aren't sure if what you're seeing is real or created. The body movements are so fluid, so human-like. That is, until the face turns towards the screen and you look into the eyes. No matter how talented the animators of today are there is one thing they can't create: a soul. The eyes are flat and lifeless. I have been with people who've died. When the soul is gone from the body, the eyes are empty. Sightless. Immediately.

As my mother died, she shed one last tear. The hospice nurse told my sister-in-law and me that many people do that. Regrets? Pain at leaving? I don't know. But once the soul is gone, it's gone.

People argue all the time about what a soul is. What it isn't. Where it goes. Where it doesn't go. That souls create auras around people. That photographs show them leaving the body.

I will tell you what my soul is.

It is the thoughts in my mind that are never quiet. The voice of me. The essence of my conscience. The inner me who gazes out at the outside me. I know it is contained inside of me and yet it isn't anything finite that I can hold up and show you. It is the image looking back at me in the mirror. The part of me that feels joy and sorrow, peace and anxiety, love and pain. Who communicates with the outside world thru words and touch and gestures. It feels the wind and holds its face up to the warmth of the sun. It heard the voice of God and recognized it when it did. And it yearned for something more...all my life...some way to fill the empty void it felt until it found the peace that passes all understanding.

And people will argue with me, when I tell them my soul was touched by God. And that's ok.

I know what I know.

2012-01-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

At what fork in the road,

what moment in time,

do we lose the magic of childhood?

When do we realize

we no longer know how

to play?

That people aren't always kind?

That the universe can spin out of our control

and leave us shattered

and

disillusioned?

When our rose colored glasses

fall away for the last time

and rainbows

don't end

in pots of gold?

When does Creation

become commonplace

and we no longer take the time

to see its wonders

with the eyes of a child?

Where does the essence of who

we truly are

disappear to?

And why does it have to go?

When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood. ~ Sam Ewing

2012-01-07T19:10:00.000-08:00

Neighborhood friends.

This is not a photo of me with mine, but it could be. The time period is right. The clothes and haircuts are right. I found it when I Googled "neighborhood friends" and I loved it. Hopefully I'm not abusing any copyright laws by using it.

In the years when I was around the ages these kids appear to be, neighborhoods in small towns across America were loaded with children. Our neighborhood was no exception. In my family I had three brothers. One family had 10 kids. Another family had 6 boys. A few other families had two or three kids. Summer twilight games outside were amazing fun with so many playing Hide 'n' Go Seek or sandlot baseball or games we dreamed up on the spot.

My family moved away from my hometown in 1966. We moved to the Portland, Oregon, area which was around 150 miles away. On occasion we'd take a drive back for a day so my mom could visit one of my grandfathers in Hoquiam. Most of the time we kids didn't want to visit him...we wanted to be dropped off with friends in our hometown. I can not tell you how devastated I was by that move. I can not tell you how much I missed my childhood friends. And thru the years I lost contact with most of them.

Then along came the internet. People searches. Alumni sites. All kinds of ways to find and reconnect with people. And I've found a few of my childhood friends. Or they have found me. Even tho 46 years have passed since I lived there and many moved away in adulthood there is still some kind of bond there between us. Shared memories, shared histories. It is an amazing thing to sit down face-to-face with one and pour over what would've been my high school Senior yearbook if I'd still been there. To find out who's died or found success and those who never moved away. We could remember most of those kids all the way back to first grade. Most amazing of all was to actually be sitting across a restaurant table, spending time with one of those childhood friends whom I hadn't seen in 45 years. We reconnected just before my family moved to Michigan. I feel so blessed to have seen her one more time.

And now, here I am at 58. 2400 miles from home. In a city where no one shares any history with me at all. I have become friendly with many since moving here but at this age, at this stage, I don't know if I'll ever be able to form that intimacy that comes with really knowing someone. How does one find the time, in the busyness of life? But the lovely thing about friendship is it comes on many levels...from the acceptance and welcoming we've received from a small community church we've been attending to have some face-to-face fellowship with other Christians...from our neighbor Donna who is one of the loveliest people I've ever met...from all the people who cross my path in a day. Friendship itself isn't what's most important, I've found...it's friendliness. A smile, a shared greeting, a wave across the street. Just knowing you're acknowledged, a part of the community...it makes all the difference in the world.

I have been thinking some lately about the things I will probably never see again in my lifetime. When you move as far away as I have, you don't go 'home' every day. But you know, it's not the physical part of being there that you take with you anyway. It's the memories. It's what you tuck away in your heart for safe keeping.

It's one of nature's way that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us. ~ Igor Stravinsky

2012-01-03T16:05:00.000-08:00

"The blog has to fit around life, not the other way round".

I think it's been a few years since I stumbled across this absolutely beautiful blog by a lovely Irish woman named Ciara. I noticed she hadn't posted in a long time but as I scanned down my sidebar to the blogs I enjoy checking out I noticed she'd finally updated hers. How disappointed I was to read that she's contemplating shutting hers down, and I left her a comment telling her I hope she sticks it out. She is such a wonderful writer and the way she incorporates her ethereal, gorgeous photography into each post has been such a delight. I will miss her terribly if she does decide to leave her blog behind.

As I read each comment from her readers, the above quote really stuck with me, written to her by another blogger. I've been writing my blog a long time as far as personal blogs go...it will be 7 years in April, and in the earlier years I wrote on an almost daily basis. But Life never treads water. I was a middle school lunch lady when I first began writing. Then a secretary in a small gutter hanging company. A freelance data entry person. Then, in March of 2006, I began doing full time day care for my first grandson when he was a month old. Two years later his little brother arrived and became a part of my daily routine, too. My blog has morphed here, there, and everywhere since then. The lack of quiet time to write, the busyness of my days, the weariness from working 11 1/2 hours many days...they took a big toll on my blogging time. I became very frustrated and even thought about closing down my blog as well but then I remembered why I'd begun blogging in the first place -- to keep a living legacy for my grandsons. In the grand scheme of things, in the future when I'm no longer here and they have this record of my life and their involvement in it, I don't think it's going to matter to them how often or how 'wordy' I was as I wrote during these years. What's going to matter is that I did write, that I chronicled their childhoods here and my part in them, the joy they brought to me, the deep love and special bond we've shared. Hopefully things they read will trigger off long-forgotten memories. Hopefully they'll read what I've written and remember me with the same fondness and love for me that I've felt for them.

So...when times come that are especially busy...when my thoughts and focus are scattered and I have a hard time reeling them in to write anything halfway coherent...when I get discouraged about how haphazardly I find time to write, when I get frustrated and think about tossing in the towel I remember that my blog isn't just for me. My blog is for my family. My blog is something I hope will keep the bond going between the generations from me on down the line. If the world lasts that long, I hope some day my great-great-great grandchild will read these words and will think, "Boy, that crazy old lady was really something, wasn't she?" And even tho I'll be long gone and they'll never have the opportunity to meet me face to face, they'll know me thru my words.

Don't cry when the sun is gone, because the tears won't let you see the stars. ~ Violeta Parra

2011-12-31T19:16:00.000-08:00

You see darkness

where I see Light.

You resist change

and I embrace it.

You see despair

where I see hope.

You cope

and I thrive.

You feel emptiness

where I am filled to overflowing.

You lack faith

and I believe.

You tell me my life is a pipe dream.

I tell you I have found joy.

You tell me you pity me

and I tell you

you don't know what you are missing.

Your eyes are filled with deep sadness

but mine shine with an inner

peace

I would share with you

But you are steeped in misery.

As I passed by

You shut the door

and wouldn't let

me in.

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~ From the television show The Wonder Years

2011-12-25T06:47:00.000-08:00

This is the house we left behind in Portland.

We celebrated 28 Christmases there.

I wonder if it's missing us

today.

Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

2011-12-23T18:50:00.000-08:00

I was looking at some photos on a friend's Facebook page yesterday. One that caught my attention was of seven women taken back in the early 1990s...a group of women who've been friends for several decades now. At that particular time they were especially close...most of their children were good friends as well and they spent a lot of time together. But what really hit me about the photo was what was written about one of them who passed away this year. I had always thought she had the world by the tail and lived a happy life. But someone had written a comment saying, "She was well loved and she didn't know it."

How many of us go thru Life and feel like no one loves us?

Funny how sometimes, even when we're surrounded by others, we can feel so isolated and alone. Is it because we're so afraid of rejection that we're hesitant to reach out? I know for myself that that's what holds me back at times. Or it did when I was younger. As I'm getting older I am so much more comfortable in my own skin. But it's been a long and winding road thru Life to get to this point.

Several years ago someone I knew quite well died. I remember one time when she'd come over to have lunch with me at my house and she began to cry and told me she never felt like she had any friends. It nearly broke my heart. She was such a giving person, selfless in so many ways. Whatever task she undertook she put her whole heart in to it. A brilliant seamstress, she spent untold hours working on costumes for Sunday School projects. Her artistic abilities were amazing. And crafty? She could take nothing and make something beautiful out of it. I know that she struggled for acceptance amongst her peers and I don't think she ever found it, at least not on the level she so ached to attain.

And yet, when she died very tragically and unexpectedly in the prime of her life, you should have seen the amount of people at her funeral. Kids she'd taught in Sunday School. So many people whose lives she'd touched.

Someone came up to me not long after her funeral and remarked on what a beautiful service it had been. Someone who'd never been particularly kind to my deceased friend. She said, "You know, she was so well thought of and loved by so many people. But I'm sure she knew it," and I know she was waiting for me to affirm that yes, this woman had known it. I stood and looked at this person and didn't say a word. Which made her very uncomfortable. Then, a little less sure of herself she said, "She did know she was loved, didn't she? I'm sure she did." And again I said nothing.

When I did, I told her, "Actually, no. She didn't."

And I turned and walked away.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~ Lao Tzu

2011-12-18T15:16:00.000-08:00

Dear Hubby and I have never been known for being the sharpest tools in the shed. This photo is proof of it. In this part of the country, when people travel to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, they go in the summer months. They go there to enjoy the beauty of the region and the majestic vastness of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Truly, they are inland seas, as my blog friend Alaine described them to me once. Being a West Coast girl all my life I believed there were no other 'beaches', no other 'shores' than those of the Pacific Ocean. After crossing over the Mackinac Bridge, I changed my mind. My first glimpse of the Lakes had my jaw dropping down in awe and all I could say, over and over, was "WOW!"

Do we go in the summer like most sane and sensible people? Why, no. We go now, in December, when it was in the teens and ice heaves like these are forming along the northern shore of Lake Michigan. When the wind is howling at 40 miles per hour and the wind chill factor has the air temperature hovering at zero. Why do we do things like this? Well, partly because we're a little bit crazy. And partly because we like doing things unconventionally. This way we had the highways to ourselves. This way we got to see what kinds of conditions the native "Yoopers" - as residents of the Upper Peninsula are called - live with in the off-season months. From what we could see, they hunker down with plenty of wood stacked out in the woodpiles. They have snow plows hooked onto the front of their pick ups or standing ready, leaning up against their garages. The land is rugged and wild. There are huge sand dunes and the wind whips off the tops of them in stinging sprays across the highway. There are rough cabins and spectacular homes sharing space along the shore. You can look out across the water and there is no land in sight. It is, undoubtedly, some of the most beautiful land the good Lord has created on this earth.

I know before we moved to Michigan I'd heard of the Upper Peninsula. I hadn't heard much. I couldn't even remember much of the American History I'd learned about Michigan in high school...too many other states to learn about as well. But since we've moved here just about everyone we've met has asked us, "Have you been to the UP yet?" They ask it with kind of an affectionate pride in their voices, like they're talking about their kid or something. When we'd say "No" they'd say, "Oh, but you gotta get up there! It's one of the most beautiful places on earth!" and we'd smile politely and say, "Yes, we hope to soon." And we'd talk about it but time just got away from us and we never made it during the tourist months.

But we made it in December. And if you ask me, I think we hit it at its best time. In its wild state. When it felt like it belonged to no one but Dear Hubby and me.

The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs. ~ Joan Didion

2011-12-13T18:23:00.000-08:00

This morning I was reading the post of a young friend of mine on Facebook. She'd received some Final Notices concerning medical bills for her children she thought had been paid by her medical insurance a couple of months ago. She spoke of how stressed she was. I could so relate to her situation and her feelings.

Once upon a time, I was a young mother facing a mountain of medical bills. And we didn't have medical insurance at the time. I had given birth to my 12-pound son by emergency c-section. He and I were in the hospital for almost a week. There were the room costs, the nursery costs, the operating room costs, the anesthesiologist bill, my doctor bill. Bills, bills, bills. Dear Hubby was the sole breadwinner and made less than $5 per hour. We had a two-year-old daughter. We were young, desperate, and very scared.

Luckily a friend of ours worked at the small town hospital where I'd given birth. She was able to provide us with some paperwork to fill out to help us with the hospital bill, as long as we qualified. Boy, did we ever qualify! On top of everything else, our son had picked up staph infection in the hospital and was a very sick little baby. The hospital 'forgave' us our entire bill.

Which left us with all the doctor and anesthesiologist bills.

As Christians we felt compelled to pay off those bills, even tho the amounts seemed astronomical, especially my doctor's. We barely had two nickels to rub together but I sat down and wrote letters to the anesthesiologist's and my doctor's business offices, telling them we had no medical insurance but we would pay every penny owed to them because we were Christians, no matter how long it took. This was back in 1978. The anesthesiologist's amount was something like $275 and we got that paid off fairly quickly...within a year, I believe. The doctor bill was closer to $1000. Some months I was able to send $5, some months $50...$10 here, $20 there. Slowly, slowly it dwindled down. And finally I came to the point where I wrote out the final check and sent it off. Our son was almost 5 at the time, and we'd moved from that town, eventually landing in Portland where we lived until earlier this year. As we moved, I could've easily not sent my forwarding address to them. I could've skipped town and never paid off that debt. But pride and a strong sense of right versus wrong kept me true to my word. It gave me a great sense of satisfaction, dropping that envelope into the mailbox.

The funny thing is, a week or so later I got a card from my doctor's office in the small town. A Thank You card, from the office manager. She wrote and told me how the whole office had been aware of what a struggle it had been for us to pay off that bill. And when they received the final payment, how good it made them feel. She said it restored their faith in people, a person who actually kept their word and did such a thing. She said it didn't happen like that very often. She wished us the best, on all their behalf.

I sat and stared at that card in amazement.

You see, we go about our lives making simple decisions, to do what's right. And we go about our business and faithfully send off that money, figuring it's just going into the doctor's bank account and the amount due is a little less each time the bill shows up regularly in the mail month in, month out. You have no idea what kind of an impression something that seems so mundane to you such as paying a bill might be making on someone else. An entire doctor's office, for instance.

And then you sit there with the proof of what it has meant to those people held in your hand. And you feel very humbled, because it is a testimony to them what God has done for you in your life. Made you honest. Made you a person of your word.

And 33 years later, it is a memory that is still very precious to me.

2011-12-13T04:51:00.000-08:00

A beautiful Michigan sunrise.

Just thought I'd share it.

He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree. ~ Roy L. Smith

2011-12-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

This turned out kind of dark, probably because I took it with my Android phone late this evening and the cards are on the floor. But I want to talk about Christmas cards.

I love Christmas cards.

These are the first ones that have arrived in the mail in the past few days. From friends and family scattered far and wide. Some with Christmas letters, some without. I learned that Cousins Mark and Martha flew to New York City in October all the way from Woodlake, California, for their 25th wedding anniversary. I heard of one friend whose husband built a new house for them that they moved into this year in British Columbia, Canada. I heard from some dear neighbors in Portland who told us we have a package of surprise goodies coming to help us celebrate...probably some of her excellent Baklava! A card with an oil painting of Mt. Hood a friend painted. Another beautiful handmade card a new friend of mine here in Michigan made. Lots of photo cards with the smiling faces of those who are near and dear to us...separated by many miles but still so close to us in heart.

Christmas cards just make me feel...good.

I had mentioned to a friend on Facebook the other day that I've gone thru 4 or 5 books of stamps getting all of ours sent out this year. In years past, at least for friends within our Portland church, we had pigeon holes set up in a hallway to put our Christmas cards in and it cut the cost by quite a margin. But I don't have that luxury now...all my cards are stamped and addressed and sent out in the mail. She said, "Why not send them by email? Lots of people do that." I thought about that for a moment and I said I guess I'm old-fashioned but I like getting them in the mail. How it's so nice to open the mail box and find a bunch of cards tucked in with the junk mail and bills. To hold them in my hands, read the messages, and appreciate the fact someone took the time to send one to us.

I know it's a dying tradition. Our lives are rife with dying traditions. But as long as I have the ability to hand write and as long as I have your snail mail address...if you're someone near and dear to me, you're getting a Christmas card.

End of story.

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty. ~ Marcus Fabius Quintilian

2011-12-12T10:42:00.000-08:00

Facebook.

I hate it. I love it.

Recently I've connected on Facebook with someone I've known for years but not really known. Just peripherally in the past. And he mentioned he's getting to know some of the people from our church's faith better on Facebook than he ever knew them in the past. Me, too. He moved to South Africa many years ago and made his life there. I remember him as a much younger man, the son of one of the pastors. I don't think I've spoken to him in my life face-to-face. And he's such a nice man. If I wasn't on Facebook we probably never would've truly 'met'. That's one of the things I love about Facebook.

What do I hate? It's such a time-robber. At least it is right now while I'm on hiatus from doing the daily day care for my two little grandsons. I get on there and I can get lost in playing word games. The next thing I know, I look at the clock and an hour has passed by. But this morning I went over to my son's house to pick up Dear Hubby's cell phone that he'd accidentally left there yesterday when he stayed with Dylan and Cooper for a few hours while the kids took my d-i-l's mother on a tour of downtown Detroit. Ursula told me she's most likely leaving sometime this week for Texas so I'll begin taking care of the boys again. I've missed them something terrible so it'll be nice to get back into the swing of things again. And that also means much less computer time. So I'll try to balance Facebook and blogging again. Blogging usually loses, ha! Facebook is so easy and accessible. Blogging takes quiet and concentration. And a mind that's relatively alert.

Even on my best days, a mind that's relatively alert usually eludes me.

But I'll give it my best shot.

This one, for my own reasons, is dedicated to someone very near and dear to my heart.

2011-12-12T04:12:00.000-08:00

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2011-12-11T15:08:00.000-08:00

A very cold and clear sunset this evening.

I love the variation of light,

from rose to pale lavender.

Where thou art - that - is Home. ~ Emily Dickinson

2011-12-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

Home.

Sweet home.

I had Dear Hubby take this photo of our house this morning. I am feeling too sick to venture very far from the comforts of the living room. This was taken just as the sun was coming up, casting its golden glow over the bricks and rock on the front of the house.

It came to me recently just how much this lovely little house has truly become "home".

On Thursday Dear Hubby and I had dinner at a restaurant out of town. And not even half an hour later I was beginning to feel quite poorly. To make matters worse, we were several miles from home. All during the ride back all I thought was, "I can't wait to get home!" To my bed. To my pillows.

And as we were driving along it occurred to me.

There was no thought of Portland as home any more. Not even remotely.

Here is my home.

My comfort zone.

The only place I wanted to be.

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. ~ Virginia Woolf

2011-12-07T04:47:00.000-08:00

I was going thru my archives of about a bazillion different photos and graphics when I came across this one. I was looking for another photo for today's entry but when I came to this one my whole train of thought shifted and I decided to use this one instead and save the other for another day. If I ever find it, that is...I really do have a lot stored away, considering I've written close to 2,000 blog entries the past 5 years.

This photo is one my Dear Hubby took a few Christmas seasons ago. He'd gone hunting at his cousin Ed's house which is just across the road from this one. This house has special memories for Dear Hubby...it is the farm homestead of his maternal grandparents who originally emigrated from Austria in the very early 1900s. They settled in Canada, to begin with, then came to Oregon City. Dear Hubby's mother, the last of 14 children, was born here in 1929. When I married Dear Hubby in 1974 only a handful of the children had passed away. As I write this, my mother-in-law and two of her brothers are still alive. But one is terminally ill with cancer and may die within days.

Dear Hubby spent a good portion of his early years in this house. His mother worked so his grandmother took care of him and one of his sisters during the day. His grandma never learned to speak much English. When they moved to Oregon this house was far enough out in the country that she rarely went to 'town' so there was little need for her to speak anything more than the basics. Dear Hubby tells me he never spoke German but he could understand it when his grandmother spoke it to him. This house was the Sunday gathering place after church when everyone who could would come over for dinner. Dear Hubby had something like 60 first cousins so I can just picture little ones frolicking all over the yard, the porch, the fields. They were a big, boisterous group. I don't know if the accordions and the spoons were brought out on any of these Sundays but I've been to wedding celebrations where they were and the family would dance polkas and the Schottische. There was a lot of life lived in this house. But, like with all families, parents aged and died. Sadly, the house was sold outside of the family tho Cousin Ed still lives across the road in the house he grew up in, and family still lives scattered all over the nearby area.

I don't exactly envy Dear Hubby for this rich heritage but I often wonder what it must have been like growing up surrounded by so much family. He had cousins who were as close to him as siblings. So, as he took this untouched photo that day, I wonder at the memories that must have been moving at lightning speed thru his mind. Picturing his parents as their younger selves, seeing his long-gone grandparents and aunts and uncles. Picturing himself, a skinny little dark-haired boy playing in the yard. Eating all the wonderful food prepared and served in that house.

I never had that, growing up.

Maybe...on second thought...I do envy him after all.

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. ~ George Carlin

2011-12-06T05:27:00.000-08:00

Our first sticking snowfall.

There's something I'm just not getting.

Why don't people like snow in the midwest?

To me, it's almost magical, coming from a region where in the low-lying valleys snow wasn't something that came too often. But as everyone here has been telling me I'll be sick of it by the end of February.

Between you and me...I think not.

Ramble: to wander around in a leisurely, aimless manner

2011-12-03T07:57:00.000-08:00

The Shore of Lake Huron

There's frost and leftover snowfall from yesterday on the grass this morning. I am home alone, listening to Pandora. I love Pandora. It fits my very eclectic taste in music. I have everything from pop to southern gospel to bluegrass to folk to musicals to adult contemporary to Celtic to New Age on my personal station. Even some opera if you want to consider Andrea Bocelli an opera singer. I guess he is, but I find his singing style more...romantic...than anything.

I have spent the last two days writing my Christmas cards and I am only about 2/3 of the way done. I have writer's cramp. Otherwise, I'd finish the rest of them today. Trouble is, the only time I hand write anything is when I write a check and I rarely do that now with technology what it is. I read and also heard on the news not long ago that schools are thinking of no longer teaching cursive writing to students. Hopefully they won't do away with printing one of these days. That would leave us all with no signature. And what a Brave New World that would bring on, taking one of our most personal declarations of self away from us. But they seem to be more and more determined to do that to us as it is. Equality in its proper places is fine, but taking away personal liberties is a little too creepy for me. You don't even dare scratch your fanny in public because security cameras are everywhere watching our every move.

I spent an hour down in the basement this morning. We have 1100 square feet down there and don't even use it. But I dusted out cobwebs and swept. Dear Hubby and I have discussed putting some furniture in the large great room, I guess you'd call it. (Or Rec room, since it was built in the 1950s and that's what they were called back then?) At least we did when we first moved into this house, thinking we'd escape the summer's heat below ground. We also thought our grandsons would utilize it for playing but unless I go there with them they want to stay up here with me. With central air conditioning it ended up we were comfortable here on the main floor so the basement has remained essentially empty except for one bedroom there that we have some exercise equipment in and several bins of Dear Hubby's hunting clothes as well. With 1100 feet up here on the main floor and just two people...how much room do we need? But it's nice knowing it's down there if we need it. I do my laundry there. We have tons of cupboard space. Before we moved we'd stuffed our Portland house to the gills. I can not begin to tell you how much 'stuff' we gave and threw away. And I don't ever ever ever want to be the slaves to so much...stuff...ever again. It's been very liberating to have it all gone. And what is especially funny to me is we haven't missed one thing.

Was it last weekend Dear Hubby and I headed south towards Ohio to go antique store browsing? Time goes by so fast I'm constantly losing track of it. We stopped here in LaSalle, Michigan, and spent a good hour or more wandering up and down the aisles. As we left we chose a random direction and turned on to the highway, not knowing where we'd end up. We came to the lovely and historic town of Monroe. Its history is rich and diverse...a major battle of the War of 1812 was fought there. General George Armstrong Custer wasn't born in the town but he moved there at an early age and it is where he grew up. Many of his relatives who died at the battle of Little Bighorn are buried there. There was a doctor who used his home as part of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War years and it now houses the public library. Since we arrived in the afternoon we didn't have as much time to ramble around the town as we would have liked to. But definitely worth another trip on another day.

What is it like to ramble around in a new place where nothing is familiar? Well, every day is a new adventure tho 9 months into our move here more and more is becoming familiar. I like to venture off into new neighborhoods as I'm out and about just to see what they look like. I feel comfortable doing that, now that I know which streets are main streets and I know I can find my way home if I turn down one of them that is familiar. With the surrounding land so flat the plats of roads are very much North/South/East/West. It really isn't very easy to get lost. Now that I've learned that I'm more confident. When my daughter-in-law and I were here in January to house hunt I said to Bill the Real Estate Guy, "How on earth do you know where you are if you don't have any visible landmarks to guide you?" In Portland we had the Cascade Mountains to the east, the West Hills to the west. He thought about that for a moment and just shrugged. "Well, Kris," he said, "I've lived here all my life. I just know where I'm going."

Well, I know where I'm going now, too. Most of the time.

Interview with God

2011-12-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

For those of you who might be new to my blog, I am a Christian. I was recently sent this beautiful video from a friend of mine that I would like to share with anyone who believes in God.

Please click here

He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate. ~ Henry David Thoreau

2011-12-02T04:55:00.000-08:00

I've had a luxury lately of something I never seem to have enough of.

Time.

For the past 5 1/2 years I have been providing full time day care for my grandsons. While we were living in Portland my days usually started around 5:30 in the morning and ended around 5 pm. My son and daughter-in-law lived in Vancouver, Washington, and for those of you who live out of that region you can't even begin to understand the nightmarish quality of their daily commute. Many people who live in Vancouver work in Portland. There are two bridges that service the traffic crossing over the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver. One is the I-5 bridge that carries all of the interstate traffic from the Canadian border to the Mexican border. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles cross that bridge every day. The I-205 bridge was built when the eastern area of Vancouver was mostly fields and farms but in the 30-odd years since it opened to traffic the population there has exploded. So has the traffic volume. And that is the bridge my kids had to cross every day. The morning commute wasn't quite so bad because they both started work earlier than most people but the evening commute...oh my. Sometimes, especially in bad weather or if there was an accident tying up the traffic, they wouldn't get home until 6:30 or 7 at nite. By that time they'd have time to eat dinner and crawl in bed exhausted, only to get up and do it all again the next day. To say the family lived in their vehicle would not be an understatement. Family time? For them? For all of us to get together? Fuhgeddaboutit!

Some days here in Michigan are long, too, but not nearly as often. My days start at 6:30 and generally end a little after 4. The past few weeks my daughter-in-law's mother has been visiting from Texas and while she's here she's been taking care of the boys. She may go home next week, she may wait until after Christmas. She hasn't decided yet. But this affords me a chance to have a bit of a hiatus. I sleep in a little later, stay up a little later. I can come and go as I please. I can read a book uninterrupted. Listen to music. Never turn on the TV. If it's beautiful...and it is most of the time...I can throw on my boots and a coat and head out for a walk. I can go to the library. Browse thru thrift stores. Have breakfast with a friend. Simple pleasures. And it has refreshed me and rejuvenated me.

But I'm ready to have the boys back, too.

I feel like part of me is missing.

Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn. ~ Irvin S. Cobb

2011-12-01T04:39:00.000-08:00

I guess that's a little harsh to post but I'm in a bit of a...mood...this morning. I have taken a break from Facebook. I don't feel at liberty to really vent here any more -- that's what you get for sharing your blog address with everyone you know. Sigh.....

In my younger years I had a very sarcastic, very biting wit. In any given situation I'd blurt out something and everyone around me would laugh except for the person it was pointed at. It didn't even dawn on me to consider the other person's feelings. I had been raised in a household where that kind of humor was considered 'funny'. Oh, I was funny, all right. So I thought. I was married to Dear Hubby for several years when we were talking to a neighbor outside and I made what I thought was a clever remark to the neighbor about Dear Hubby. I don't even remember what it was after all these years. But when we got in the house Dear Hubby brought it to my attention. He told me how humiliated and hurt he was by what I'd said, how disrespectful I'd been. I was so beyond shocked I was speechless. Me, intentionally hurt him? Why, that had never even entered my mind. Our neighbor had laughed uproariously. I had thought I was...funny.

I learned a very, very valuable lesson from that incident. I learned to weigh what I want to say very carefully before the words ever leave my mouth. Many is the time since then when I've said nothing at all. What is more important, someone thinking I'm hilarious...and I've been told by many that I am...or leaving someone else's feelings and dignity intact? That is a no-brainer.

So many of us say things without weighing the consequences of what it might do to another human being. How it might undermine their confidence, how it might devastate them. Even how it might even alter their life from that moment on. I was a victim of all of those myself when I was younger. With age comes wisdom, tho, and I've found when hurtful words are sent my way now it's best to just put them aside and move on. Sometimes that's hard and it may even change the relationship I have with the person. But trying to be understanding and being forgiving is a much better way. Taking offense and letting it fester poisons no one but the one who holds the grudge.

2011-11-26T18:11:00.000-08:00

Where do you go, when you're here?

Here

but removed

and I can not reach you.

Enclosed in thoughts that don't include me.

A landscape I can't enter in.

Where do you go, in your mind?

Swirling mists

in rain forest glens,

or valleys of desert sage.

Where kestrels soar

on thermal breaths

that lift the wing.

I am here

and I am not.

am not welcome

on that journey.

I sit here and quietly study you

but

I am not worried

Because I know, wherever you go,

you'll return to

me.

A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. ~ Dutch Proverb

2011-11-25T17:44:00.000-08:00

While everybody else was out doing their Black Friday thing, I spent the morning putting up my and Dear Hubby's little Christmas tree. And my grandson Cooper came over because it was Garbage Day today and Cooper loves his Garbage Guys.

Here he is, patiently waiting, for the trucks to start coming around the corner.