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No Place Like Home

In this upside down time that we’re living in, the one constant for most of us, is home and family. I’ve been happy to see families connecting on deeper levels, paying more attention to each other, a slower kind of pace, and even cooking together and dinner at the family table.

There’s been new levels of creativity and new music coming out of this. I’ve seen the best of mankind coming to the help of ones in need on more levels than I’ve seen before. Patience and kindness in abundance. I hope when this is done, that all the good things keep being the normal. That we consider each other with respect and continue to let kindness and thoughtfulness be our actions toward one another.

I watched “The Wizard of Oz” on TV the other night, for the umpteenth time. At the end, when Dorothy keeps saying, “There’s no place like home,” I started thinking about that phrase.

My heart has always LOVED being home! Don’t get me wrong, I also LOVE to go out to see a movie, eat at a restaurant, roller skate, go to the ballet, out with a friend, and many other things, but when I am done, my home is where I head.

I have moved about 25 times in my 58 years of living. I have lived two of the places for 10 years each, so, there was a lot of moving in the other years.

Sometimes, the imagination of picking up and going somewhere completely unknown, appeals to me. Not to escape life, but to live it differently. To live awhile somewhere, learn a neighborhood, see different aspects of life. Try different jobs and cultures. Be a wanderlust. I’ve probably watched too many old western movies with the cowboys moving from town to town.

But this imagining is only for inside my mind. This dream could have only been for a single me with not much family. This version, of me with family all around me, is the best dream I could ever have had.

I still have many dreams and many more things I would like to accomplish in this lifetime, but the two most things I’m thankful for, is family and home.

Christmas Songs

As a child, Christmas was all about me. I would get the Montgomery Ward or Sears catalog and circle all the toys I wanted. Every toy commercial was something that I had to have. I would lay awake on Christmas Eve, as long as I could. Sometimes I thought I heard Santa.

Before I became a teenager, the wonder of Christmas dissipated from finding out things about the season that I had believed since I could remember. I’m trying not to ruin it for any young readers. But the one thing that always made me have a little wonder were the Christmas songs that were played on the radio and on records.

Johnny Mathis, Elvis Presley, Nat King Cole, The Carpenters and many more made me dream of being a grown up. I thought there were chestnuts roasting and sleigh rides in my future, cozy fires and a partridge in a pear tree.

Those things would still be nice but my mind goes there whenever one of my favorite songs are played. I seem to love them more every year. That, along with the decorations on my Christmas tree, the memories of who made or gave them to me over the years, the ones my children and grandchildren have made. The angel one that I made when I was eight months pregnant, was stuffed so tight with stuffing that I must have been trying to mimic how I was feeling. I still smile when I look at it.

When I was in my early 20’s, I needed a clothes dryer. With two very young children, it was hard to hang the clothes outside and corral them. I can only go one direction at a time, and they usually went different directions. I had a friend offer me to sell some popsicle stick sled ornaments, at her booth at a local fall festival. I started several months ahead of time and had lots ready. When I told her I wanted to sell enough to buy a dryer afterwards she said I never could sell that much. Back then, a dryer could be bought for around $250.

I sat at the booth and would paint the names on any sled that was wanted. I sold them for one dollar each and the week after the festival, I went and bought a brand new dryer with cash. I was so happy.

As a young woman with a family of my own, I would plan family parties around the holidays. I always wanted to see my aunts more then I got to growing up, so that was a way to do it. Plus, lots of cousins made it fun. As I look around, with Christmas songs playing, my family generations all around, from the age of 77 down to 4, I am again in wonder.

One, how fast it has all happened, secondly, to see my four year old granddaughter singing Jingle Bells and Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. Thirdly, is to love that the traditions and things that I love about Christmas, is being presented to the generations that come after me. They can choose what they like best and will continue to pass along what they love. Maybe two hundred years from now, my lineage will still be singing, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire”, and dreaming of a day when they will have their own families with their own Christmases. And that is something to really be in wonder about.

Badger Mountain

Once upon a time, my husband and some friends were planning a hunting trip to Colorado, elk and mule deer hunting. I had heard many stories about past hunts and asked if I could go also.

I had hunted even before meeting my husband, and wanted a chance to see game, other then deer, rabbits, squirrel, etc.

Some of his group were not too happy about having a “woman go on a hunting trip”. Everything from bad luck to scratching and itching whenever they want.

Anyway, my husband said I could go. The morning we left, I had a terrible head and chest cold. I don’t know if it was emotions from leaving my teenage daughters with my parents for 10 days or what, but I felt awful. We pulled an enclosed trailer behind the truck with all of our supplies in it. We unhooked when we got to the camp, so we could drive around and check out the area.

Our cabin was very nice. It was more like a huge storage shed converted into such. The loft could sleep 8 comfortably, in sleeping bags, and there were 2 sets of bunk beds, and table with chairs and a wood burner for the rest of it.

The bathroom, however, was about 100 yards away, down and up a ravine. It was not enclosed and had a blue tarp in front of it to hide you sitting down. Your head and shoulders were above it looking at the cabin. Plus, the guy that let us stay there said they found mountain lion tracks as big as a bread plate, so I definitely was not going to the bathroom at night…

After stomping around a few days and not seeing but one elk that was so far away, I thought it was a dog, we decided to drive around and scout some places they might be.

The sign at the bottom of the hill said “Badger Mountain”. We started up in our dualie (a truck with 4 wheels across the back), and the road kept narrowing. I was on the outside edge and was seeing tree tops and a sheer drop off. I HATE heights especially combined with a drop off with no guard rails…

At one point, the road looked like it was smaller then our truck and I asked about it. My husband said that one tire of our back 4 was off the road, hanging over the abyss. Ok, so severe panic set in and I started yelling, “Let me out of this truck, right now”. If there had been a back window into the bed of the truck, I would have been out, but the road widened a little and he stopped for me to get out.

I don’t know what a person would do if someone was coming down the hill in a vehicle. There was NO passing room. It looked like we were about at a 500 foot drop off. I wished they had put me to sleep before we left, like the old “A Team” used to with B.A.

So, I’m walking down the mountain and began thinking, “This is called Badger Mountain. Why in the world did I leave my gun in the truck?”

A little while later, the guys came and picked me up. They found a slightly wider spot up the way, and eeked it back and forth until they got it turned around.

My husband never has gone back to Colorado since. Maybe too much yet. 🙂

The Art of Needle and Thread

I love needlework! When I was in my mid 20’s, I had my aunt teach me how to do counted cross stitch. I also like piecing material together for quilts or projects. Plus, I took a wool felt class with my mother years ago and fell in love with that too. These give me plenty to do in the long winter months.

There’s just something about a needle pulling thread, whether by hand or by machine. The rhythmic in and out, pulling the thread tight enough to be smooth, but not too much to pucker your piece.

I don’t consider myself good at these, but adequate. Cutting and sewing the pieces all alike, I find that many end up not looking exactly like the others. I just smile and say, “Well, that’s my spin on it”. My crafts definitely look homemade, even if I’d rather they looked a little more polished.

I did some paper piecing for a sewing class instructor once. She showed me how to do it and showed me her piece. It looked almost like a computer had put it together. Very straight and no nonsense. When I gave her the ones that she gave me to do, she looked at them and said, “Well, I can use these to show how this technique can also look homemade”. Enough said.

But, over time, I’ve seen the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, Picasso and the like, and realize that my humble work suits me just fine. Art is in the eye of the beholder. My eyes would like to see more symmetry in my quilting, but when I’m off this planet, and having a blast in Heaven, my family will have my creations that I poured my love into. And hopefully, the misshapes and crooked lines will give them one more smile when they look at it and remember me.

The No Apple Apple Dumpling

Many years ago, my husband and I were out for the day. When we got hungry, we decided to go to a little cozy diner that we liked to frequent.

We had a nice lunch. We don’t usually order dessert, but we did this time because apple dumplings were on the menu board. Something we both love.

So, we got them warmed up with some ice cream. I was savoring every bite, eating it slowly to make it last. My husband was a few bites in and looked at me and said, “Does yours have any apples?”

Confused, I looked up and said, “Yeah, doesn’t yours?”

He said “no” so I said, “well, maybe you aren’t in far enough yet.”

So he keeps eating, taking a little ice cream with some bites. After about 10 minutes, the waitress came over and asked how they were. My husband said, “I’m two-thirds through and I haven’t found any apples.”

She leaned over and looked at his plate and said, “Oh my, someone got the pie crust ball instead of the dumpling.” She went on to explain that they freeze their pie dough in balls and thaw to roll out. They look the same in the freezer. We laughed and laughed.

The waitress then asked him if he wanted a real apple dumpling, he held his stomach and said, “No, I’m full on the dough ball I just ate”. So, she packed him one to go.

Ever since then, he puts a fork in the middle of any apple dumplings that he gets, pulls it apart a little, and makes sure there are apples in there.

Why Don’t Husbands Ever Listen

I’ve been married 22 years and I’ve asked myself this question probably 100 times. Our first few years of marriage, I worked six days a week in a factory and he worked 5 days a week in a grocery store. He is a meat cutter by trade.

So, one summer, I was working the next day and he had it off. He was going to mow grass and burn a brush pile we had. He had been mowing too close to the edge of our pond, so I told him he shouldn’t get so close. I had told him many, many times before, but reminded him again. We were also in a drought long enough that the grass was crunchy. I told him to hook up the hoses to the spigot outside and run it down close to the fire, in case it got out of hand.

I came home from work that day only to find him sitting in the easy chair with his feet up, watching television. I was a little irked, thinking he had spent his day doing nothing. Then he told me why he ended up there.

He was mowing around the pond, when the mower, with him on it, fell in. He had one knee in the muck, trying to push the mower up and out. Then after he got the truck and pulled out the mower, he put it away. Said it needed to dry out.

His next bright idea was to light the brush pile. As the grass started burning toward the woods in several different places, he had to run uphill, get the hoses, attach them to the spigot and started down with the hose. It was too short, so he had to run uphill and find buckets to fill. Then run back and forth filling buckets and throwing it at all the flames threatening the woods. So, okay, he’s off the hook for today.

The next thing I can think of, is he was going to spray some kind of dust into a yellow jacket nest that made its home on our back porch in the ceiling. I am a beekeeper, so I told him he should wear my bee helmet, long sleeves, and gloves to do that job. Next, I see him through the back door with a ball cap and short sleeves on, with some kind of sprayer, on a ladder, reaching up to the hole in the ceiling. I watch him spray one puff and then the dance was on…Yellow jackets don’t like it when you invade their territory and were flying around his head. I have never seen his hands move so fast. I was wishing I was video taping it.

You don’t have to feel bad for him, he only got one sting on his ear. The next time I looked on the porch, he had a bee helmet, long sleeves and gloves on. Hmmm…..

And why is it that when he comes home with some fantastic tidbit of information, it is usually something I have been telling him for years…

My Papa’s Acres

My grandfather we called Papa and I loved him very much. He passed away in his early 50’s when his coal truck went over the side of a mountain because the road fell away. I was eleven years old. The funny thing is that his training told the drivers to ride the truck out. That their chances were better then jumping out. He panicked and jumped out, rolled and hit his head on a rock. They drove the truck out of the ravine. It never even turned over.

I am told that I am a lot like he was. I have wished through the years that he was beside me giving me his gardening and beekeeping wisdom.

Some of my happiest memories are of being on his three acres. He had five gardens of vegetables, about 15 apple trees, pear trees, three different colors of cherry trees, plum trees, lots of different nut trees, three colors of raspberry bushes, and three colors of grapes on a big wooden structure, and gooseberries. When the apples started growing and were big enough to eat, I would climb a tree with the salt shaker and eat green apples with salt. What a treat! The whole place was like a wonderland to me.

He started his own seeds in a coal heated workshop. That workshop was amazing, and still, if I can smell the right oily smell, it takes me right back to that place. There were, what seemed like, hundreds of cubby holes with all sorts of different shapes and objects. Jars with screws and metal coffee cans. It was a delight to look through.

He was always trying something different and one year, he planted peanuts…in Ohio. He preserved cabbages, by pulling them out of the ground with the whole root, turning them upside down and burying them in dirt. Mid-winter, with lots of snow on the ground, he would go push the snow off and pull that cabbage up, good as new.

He had ducks and chickens. He would kill a couple chickens on Saturday, hang them in the cherry tree and have for Sunday dinner with homemade noodles. My mother says there was no better meal on the planet then those Sunday dinners.

He was a beekeeper and would get calls to go get bees that were in walls, hanging on trees, etc. I got into beekeeping and asked my Nana about his old equipment. She had sold it just six months before I had asked. She had them for about 20 years after his death and decided to sell them. Sigh…

This has been a rough year for our family and I don’t know if I’m nostalgic or just thinking of simpler times, but Papa’s acres are a place that my mind likes to rest and stay awhile.

Saving Grace

A friend of mine found this story I wrote on Facebook and I thought it was good to repeat it here. So here goes…

Several years ago, I found myself crying most every day, depressed about all the time, struggling in lots of ways. I know I had made bad choices in my life. Plus, other people hurt me, used me, manipulated me, then threw me away. I would think that if this, or that, circumstance would change, then things would be better. So, I would do the best I could to make the circumstances change, only nothing got better. I felt like I was in a tailspin heading for a crash. It felt like even my body was going to explode at some point. Nothing made me happy and I had no peace inside. Just turmoil and lots of pain. Complete hopelessness! I even contemplated suicide. (I know how horrible it is to the family, so I didn’t contemplate it long).

I know there are a lot of people out there that feel the same way.

So, what did I do to turn things around? I gave up. I gave up trying to make life better. I gave up trying to control my circumstances. I gave up doing things my way. And I gave my life and heart to Jesus. I repented (said I was sorry) for having been rebellious (which was doing things my way), and told Him that I would start living for Him. I found out that the word for repentance means, “to turn and go in the opposite direction”. So I turned and went in another direction. I stopped doing things that the Bible said I shouldn’t do, like what the 10 commandments say. Then I started reading the New Testament and finding out what I was supposed to live my life like. To follow after Jesus.

From that point on, my life started to turn around and change for the better. It takes some time to turn the Titanic around (I was headed for the iceberg). But it did turn around. The peace that flooded into me was like nothing I have ever known before. And as I have made right choices, I have seen the rewards that come with them. Through the Bible I have learned that I am not the lowest slime on the earth. I found out that I am tremendously loved. That I was worth the sacrifice that Jesus made, to die on the cross. That I was worth everything to Him. He died for me so that He wouldn’t have to live without me. And He gave me the choice to accept His wonderful, beautiful gift of eternal life. Wow!

Hunting with Pam

I was raised in a good family. My Dad and Mom worked hard to give us a nice life. I had a lot of fun with friends and my brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles.

I’ve always had an interest in shooting guns. But my family was not really into it. When I was grown up, I had a boyfriend that took me target shooting with a .44 mag pistol. We went to a friends house for a party and they set up a box with sticker dots around it to shoot at.

I had done a little shooting with a .22 rifle and loved it. So I said I’d try the pistol. So, standing with both arms up in front of me with the pistol in hand, I took aim and shot straight through the 1″ dot at about 50 feet away. I took aim and did the same at the next dot. Nailed it. My boyfriend looked at me and asked if I was aiming at the dots. I said that I was, that’s why I hit them. He must not have quite believed me so he told me to aim at the lower right dot and “boom”, I put a bullet right through that dot. He said he would never make me mad…

So now, I wanted to deer hunt. I borrowed a 20 gauge gun from a friend of mine and went to my best friend, Pam’s house. We had been best friends for quite a few years and she wanted to get some deer for the freezer too.

She borrowed a gun and we went out to her woods the day before gun hunting season started. We looked for trails and took some hay bales out to hide behind and some chairs to sit in while we waited for the deer to come.

This was both of ours first time trying to hunt a deer. We went out in the dark and took our seats. Had drinks, snacks and a pad of paper and pen to write notes if we needed.

So we watched and listened, the sun came up and we heard shots over on the next hill. Basically we got bored and started writing funny notes back and forth to each other. Each of us tried to stifle the snickers and then belly laughs but the more we tried, the worse it got. We figured we scared every deer off of that whole valley that day. Probably had a lot of hunters not too happy with us.

I eventually got some deer in my freezer, but not hunting with Pam. We have too much fun to be serious hunters together. And that’s okay with us.

The Perfect Cup of Coffee

What draws me to a perfect cup of coffee? When I see a steaming cup, anywhere; a restaurant, on TV, through a window of a coffee shop, I feel compelled to have one myself.

Something about seeing that steaming cup in my hands screams comfort in ways other things can’t compare to.

During times of extreme cold, like just after shoveling snow, it warms me from the inside out. In times of decision making or deep thought, a cup spurs me on, sip after each delicious sip, to delve into places I maybe haven’t gone before.

When sharing with a friend, I hardly remember drinking, but my cup is empty, many times, my heart is full and I’m left with a smile on my face.

During times of intense waiting, like at the hospital or for a much long-expected phone call, that steaming cup settles me down, helps clear my head and warm my belly, helping me to feel hopeful and that all will be well.

During times of grief, that steaming cup warms my hands and a little bit of my soul. Sip after sip, reminding me that tomorrow comes. And the day after that and the day after that. That steaming cup reminds me to move along, keep going, better days ahead.

I have tried to always look at my cup as half full. Some days that is really hard. But one more cup of coffee surely can’t hurt anything.

So the perfect cup of coffee is always the one I have in my hands, right then.