The rest of 2013

Is there anyone still out in blog land?
Did you give up on my blog?

I guess I did!  Today is the last day of December, 2013 and my last post was in May this year.  Over a half of year gone by.  Tomorrow is New Years day! Amazing.  Time flies.

I'm celebrating 2014 by closing this blog and starting a new one.  I've had a few ideas for a while now, and just kind of tired of the "old".  I'd like to blog more again so I'm not planning on quitting, just giving my blog a new look and feel.  I started this one 6 years ago this last fall and our life at that time was quite different than it is now.

So I'll back up a little bit to give some closure here.

June-- We welcomed grandbaby #13 to our family.  Relyssa and Mark's first, Jasper Lee born in CO at the Midwifery center on June 11 he was 7 1/2 lbs 20 1/2 in.  born at 3:18 pm and I was delighted to be there, along with his other Grammy, two aunties and a (double) baby cousin just 6 mo. older than him.
Also had some kids/grandkids visit over my birthday weekend.  Pretty special to have all our grandkids here at once. A really fun thing is that we have 3 grandbaby boys all in Sidney, just 35 mi. from us.  Carter was born in Dec, Delon in Feb, and Jasper in June, so they are all just months apart, within 6 months.  Can you imagine 16 years from now? :)

July--My two sisters, my mom and I took a special and long awaited trip to Prince Edward Island, We flew to Portland, Maine and rented a car, driving up into Canada and took the ferry over to PEI.  It was a really special trip for us, and I will be making a page of our trip.

August--This month was filled with garden, canning, freezing and grandkids here.  Kind of a blur as I seemed to take forever to recover from vacation! We had super results from our garden, potatoes, squash & tomatoes.  I did alot of canning tomatoes, but also froze alot to make salsa from this winter while it was cold and I had more time.....hmmm guess I'd better get on that?!

September--  Another month that was just packed clear full.  We went to our annual Church convention the first part of the month, then a week later I & the 4 kids headed up to ND to visit our daughter and family up there and got in on their state's convention also.  The trip was a bit bittersweet, as Meshayla who turned 19 this month (Ekks, HOW can that be?!!) took a job up there, and was staying, living with her sister. 
When I arrived home I picked up two of our grandsons and had them here for a week with us.

October and November-- were both filled with helping our daughter and SIL get their house ready to put on the market to sell.  That involved many daily trips over to Sidney, but it was a great feeling when it was done, and their house sold within 3 days of listing it!
For Thanksgiving we had a special Thanksgiving day dinner with some "old" friends and my side of family and 9 of our kids in Kearney.

December--has been full of more trips to Kearney, some special company, special Sundays, and lots of quilting.  I helped my sister quilt a special quilt that she made for her grandaughter.  Now I'm so inspired to do more quilts.  Interspersed in all the above was constant house projects that I worked on doing and had my husband working on both.  I have some new pictures I want to get posted to the "house" page before I close it down too.
Christmas day we enjoyed having our "nearby" 8 kids & families plus Jana, another couple and my grandkids "other" grammie here for lunch and a birthday party for our 2 yr old Bethy girl, and 1 yr old Carter.
We have enjoyed Jana home with us for 10 days, and my mom out with us over a few days including New Years day too.
It's been a really full month!

Now the sun is setting on the last day of the year.
Wishing you all a Very Happy New Year.  I appreciated what someone said recently.  Experiences we go thru, Good ones and Hard ones.  Not bad ones.  Hard ones.  There are always plenty of those to go around it seems, but hopefully we can enjoy the good ones more, and profit from the hard ones.

Till next time........................................

It's May!

And it finally looks, smells, sounds & acts like spring has actually arrived.

To stay that is.

We've had quite a few teasers, whispers of spring; the fickle thing it is in this part of the country.  (And quite a few other area's too, from what I've heard & seen evidence of)

We had very little snow this year, and not much "real" cold either.  In fact we didn't even get any snow here until Feb.  Once it got going tho, we had some every little bit right up to our last snow on May 1.
Nothing exciting tho, you know when it starts snowing, blowing, drifting and you can't get out of your drive way or you have to keep your snow shovel right beside your door so you can grab it to make a path-IF you can get the door pushed open far enough.  Like in the "good 'ol days"  HA.

No, all our snows were half hearted attempts that fizzled out almost as soon as they got a start.  The ground was barely covered, the tops of the grass, weeds & mowed off corn stocks sticking out.  That is until the last of April when we were done with the whole disgusting chilly, blah, black & gray landscape & thoroughly ready for some weather to match our idea of what we think spring SHOULD be, then we got about 6 inches of the wintery stuff.
Now mind you, I'm not (nor I'm sure anyone else in this area) complaining about the moisture, as it was greatly needed & appreciated, but at that point we all would have loved to see it come down in a more liquid form rather than the white flakes. The best thing I can say about it all is that it didn't stay around very long, our temps were high enough to melt it off in a couple days.

It's been a long drawn out winter, regardless that the calendar was marked spring back in March. I was ready for sunshine, blue skies, leaves on the trees & green grass. Six months of "winter" is just too long!

We planted grass.  It's going to be a challenge, nothing has been done with the yard for (??) years.  We have garden space tilled up, a beautiful waiting bed generously sprinkled with a donation from our back yard feed lot for the veggies I'm hoping will grow.  Gardening is a challenge for me, I have a love hate relationship with it.  I love the idea, like planting, love the produce & canning/freezing, but I get burned out in the middle of the summer when it's hot, and I dislike the maintenance of it. Some years are better than others.
The upside of it is when I don't get something picked or put up when I should, the chickens benefit, and I don't feel near as guilty feeding it to them!
We have baby kittens, 4 of them.  Our 3 adult cats are happy & flourishing.  The chickens that freely roamed all winter are now fenced to protect our garden.

I love May.  It's jam packed full of special dates for our family.
My sisters birthday.
A niece, two nephews.
Our (4th) daughters Anniversary
Mothers day.
Our oldest son's, our 3rd daughter & our "love in the middle" girl. #6.
Can you believe that out of 14 grandchildren & one on the way, we have none born in May.  That's o.k......  (smile!)

 Earlier this year I actually spent quite a bit of time scrapbooking. I did a first three years album for our middle son. We did lots of little projects on the house, I need to get my page updated again.  There's lots more on the "to do" list.

In the mean time I'm loving seeing spring for the first time in this part of the state & looking forward to a new grandbaby in a few weeks.

 Evidence of spring even thru the snow

 Our cats sunning on the porch. Even tho the trees have no leaves, our bush is nicely leafed out.

 All we have to do is step out the door & the cats are right beside us.  The gray one is our mama cat.

 The fields are green!

 The newly planted lawn

 Loving the sight of blue sky, planted fields & the feel of *WARM*
We had a sudden rain shower come thru this afternoon and it was wonderful. It's sandy soil out here tho, and you'd never know this picture was taken minutes after it quit.  The rain soaks in very quickly.

Inch by inch, they're coming up.  An iris bed that has survived.  I'd love to do something fun with the old stump by the mail box too.

--That sums it up for this time.

The Day is Done

 I've mentioned before that my grandparents loved poetry.

Tonight this poem came to mind, and I remembered my grandpa.


The Day is Done

 The day is done, and the darkness
 Falls from the wings of Night,
 As a feather is wafted downward
 From an eagle in his flight.

 I see the lights of the village
 Gleam through the rain and the mist,
 And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
 That my soul cannot resist:

 A feeling of sadness and longing,
 That is not akin to pain,
 And resembles sorrow only
 As the mist resembles the rain.

 Come, read to me some poem,
 Some simple and heartfelt lay,
 That shall soothe this restless feeling,
 And banish the thoughts of day.

 Not from the grand old masters,
 Not from the bards sublime,
 Whose distant footsteps echo
 Through the corridors of Time,

 For, like strains of martial music,
 Their mighty thoughts suggest
 Life's endless toil and endeavor;
 And tonight I long for rest.

 Read from some humbler poet,
 Whose songs gushed from his heart,
 As showers from the clouds of summer,
 Or tears from the eyelids start;

 Who, through long days of labor,
 And nights devoid of ease,
 Still heard in his soul the music
 Of wonderful melodies.

 Such songs have a power to quiet
 The restless pulse of care,
 And comes like the benediction
 That follows after prayer.

 Then read from the treasured volume
 The poem of thy choice,
 And lend to the rhyme of the poet
 The beauty of thy voice.

 And the night shall be filled with music,
 And the cares, that infest the day,
 Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
 And as silently steal away.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow--     

To be-or not to be

"I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances."
~Martha Washington~


I saw this posted the other day on a friend's facebook page, and it was one of those "Got to keep" quotes. 

It's always interesting to me when i see something that was spoken so many many years ago that is still so true in our day & age.

I have to say that once again it reminded me of what my grandma was like. She was very quiet, not assuming, and although no doubt that her life didn't always go the way she might have wished it would have, other than quiet "sigh's, complaining about her lot in life; or the situation was not in her nature.

Another quote I saw & (re-)posted recently was this:  

"One day you'll be just a memory for some people.
Do your best to be a good one."

 That one fits my grandma really well too, and I'm pretty sure that If I could choose to have qualities like any one person, I would choose hers.

Here's raising my glass to you, Grandma Ruth!

"If only I knew"

This is the title of a little book of quotes that I found some years ago.

One of my first and biggest "resolutions" for this year was to do some major scrapbooking.  I have many pages done that need to be placed in albums, but I have even more photos that are mostly sorted and just waiting in boxes or in pocket albums waiting to be scrapbooked. (As I write this, it sounds very repetitious.  I really didn't copy & paste,  haha!  it's an on-going goal and yes, I've accomplished quite a bit so far already this year)

I scrapbook for several reasons.  To preserve the photos is probably one of the minor ones.  I scrapbook for memories.  For mine and for my children's. To remember. I scrapbook for ME. Because it fulfills something within me, creatively & emotionally.

Today I came accross photos of one of my son's 1st. birthday party.  Mostly the photos are of him, with cake, with presents.  There are several with his sisters in it, looking on & "helping" baby brother.
I realized with sadness, there are none of him with his dad or I. None with his brother. None of him with his grandparents, who very faithfully attended & helped celebrate all of my kid's birthdays.
However, I discovered one photo, a close up of him examining a present, and off to the side, in the background, obviously not intended to be a "part" of the picture is his Great Grandpa.

I realized back when I had first went thru and sorted these pictures, that the photo, however in-intentional was the last photo that I have with son and his great grandpa.  It was the last birthday party of his great grandkids that he ever got to attend, as he passed away just 2  months later.

It brings tears to my eyes now thinking of this, because I realize so much more now, looking back on those years that yes, pictures of birthday cake & presents are fun, but it's the people in our lives that grow and change....and leave.  It's the relationships that really meant something, not the forgotten toy or the devoured cake.

It's the reason now that when I take pictures of a child's birthday, I always try to remember to include some shots with parents. Grandparents, Siblings.

I went to find my little book and read thru it. (and remembered yet another scrapbook that is on my "list of want to make")

The title of the book is "If Only I knew"  by Lance Wubbels.

A couple of my favorite quotes that mean alot to me in this book are as follows:

"If Only I Knew".....

This was the last time...the very last time...I would see you, I would take the time to treasure everything about you.

.......I could never share another day with you, I would make the most of every second.

......That I was caught in the trap of living for tomorrow and a future that existed only in my imagination, I would have slowed my pace, drawn boundaries around my work, and taken time for the people I love.

.......That even a child's days are sometimes cut short, I would wish for more long nights of rocking you to sleep.

......That when God closes a door, He opens another.  I would have been less afraid of change and more welcoming of new opportunities and adventures.

And I love how it sums up my feelings about scrapbooking....

"If Only I knew...that my memories of you would be so precious, I would take the time to carefully gather your life story."

The Author writes: 
"Think about it.  Don't allow the regrets of "if only I knew" to be the final marker of your life.  Be swift to love.  Hurry to be kind.  Take the time to make someone feel special.  Freely give hugs & kisses & may "I love you" be often on your lips."



And a last word from my perspective--I love photography, I love beautiful, creative & "perfect" photos. I've had a camera in my hand since my grandpa first gave me a "brownie box camera" when I was about 10. I've had good cameras, cheap ones, bad ones, learned some "how to", applied some of it, simply used Automatic & snapped on most of them. (And I am in no way discounting personal or professional photographers!)  Don't wait for perfection--the lack of a "good" camera.  The lack of knowledge.  Just take the picture!!   It's not the quality of the photograph that will matter in the end, it's the record. We can be pretty disappointed or annoyed about how the photo turned out, but I promise you that 25 years down the road when you pull that dusty out of focus, off centered, discolored photo from wherever you had it stored, that it will be precious!

Happy New Year!

 My Grandparents grew up in an era where poetry was taught and learned in school.
They both also had quite a few poems memorized.
My mother also knew poetry, & poets, and I remember her "saying poems".

I was read poems, and quoted poems from an early age, so even tho I ended up in a "non-era" in school as far as poetry, I still was surrounded with it, however memorizing is just not my forte.

I am familiar with many poems and titles of books along with the authors names probably mostly not only because of their interest in poetry and reading, but because we spent hours when we were growing up, playing the card game of Authors.

One poem came to mind last night that was a favorite of my grandma Ruth.  I remember her reading/quoting it on New Years eve when we were together, and then later my mom would read it from a very lovely old vintage book.
My grandma would get choked up when she read it, and as a child of course I didn't understand why.
Now in later years when I read thru it or hear my mother's voice, yes it's me tearing up, and the more I can truly appreciate the words in the poem.
Time seems to have a way of doing things like that to a person.


 Ring Out, Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Published in 1850



 

Flashback memories

 Every now and then there is something shared on facebook that is a "Do you remember this?" photo or quote.

Today I saw this one posted:

The question was asked;  how many had learned to read using these books.
I smiled at the memory.

I believe these books were actually commonly used a little bit earlier than when I started school, however I went to Kindergarten in a little one room school house, situated way back in some canyons of the area of NE that I grew up in.
There may have been a total of 6 or 7 students, one teacher
and it probably did not have the "latest" and "greatest" in textbooks & supplies.
(Nor did it have indoor bathrooms!!)

(I'm really not THAT old.....It just happened to be the part of the country that we lived in!--smile!)

If I remember right it was also the last, or the next to the last year that county schools included 8th graders.
By the next school year, we had moved, and I believe the country school had closed.

Anyway, back to me being a Kindergartener, and Dick & Jane.
I was the only Kindergartner
The teacher brought out these little readers to teach me to read.
I looked at the book, thumbed thru the pages, looked up at the teacher and said:
"I could read this for yea's & yea's (I could not say my "R"s)

My mother had taught me to read back when I was 3 & 4, and I had already devoured all the Dr. Seuss books by that time.

I really liked that teacher, and later when we moved & I went to town school, she was one of the teachers there, and always teased me about telling her I could read for yea(r)s & yea(r)s!

I guess that was the beginning of my love affair with books. In grade school I quickly went thru every book available in the school's tiny library.  I've often wondered if I would have started learning math when I was 3 & 4 if I would have been good at it!

The books have been out of print for many years but  6 years ago when our youngest was ready to start public school, she was worried about not being able to read and decided she needed to learn before she went to school.  I found a reprint--a big book "Treasury of Dick & Jane" combining all the early readers, and bought it.
She spent hours laying on the floor with the book in front of her.  With very little help, she taught herself to read.
Out of my 12 kids, although they have all been good readers and like to read, she's probably been the one who has devoured the most books, and read more advanced for her age the earliest.

Maybe there's something to be said for "Dick and Jane, Spot and Puff and baby Sally after all!