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!

Thanksgiving day

 Somehow hosting Thanksgiving really helps to make a house feel more like a home!
It was pretty special to have my MIL and SIL come out here for the day, and to have our Shayla Rose get home in time for our dinner also.

I work better when I have a deadline, so there was some projects that I was quite happy to get done before company arrived.  If you've looked at the pictures on the "House to Home" page, you can see the shutters turned cabinet doors for my kitchen that my husband got done, and also the old screen door used as a room divider that he surprised me by getting fixed & attached.

 Our table sits 12 -14   There were 12 of us plus 3 little's.  Lyrah was in the high stool at the other end beside G'ma J and Bethany & Jaith in  high-chairs.  Unfortunately I managed to crop in too closely and missed getting Jaith in the picture.

We were so pleased that it worked out for Grandma J to come out.  It's hard to have a feel for where someone lives without seeing it, so now hopefully she can picture us here a bit better.
These are Jeanne's two, Lyrah 3 and Jaith 1.

 Three of my little grandkids with their Great Grandma J.  (Ryan & Alishia's little girl Bethany, in the middle)  She has the next birthday, turning one in Dec!

How many of you are pintrest fans?  I love pintrest!  I have always loved looking at magazines and bookmarking the place for some cool idea I saw.  It's really bad when you thumb thru a magazine at the store and see one or two ideas you want to remember and go buy the magazine--It cost at least $5.00 and then takes up space with the other stack of magazines you couldn't resist.
Of course, then when you move you have to go thru them to see what you have to save & still move to many of them.
I speak from experience.
Enter pintrest.  Find anything.  pin on one page.  One giant bulletin board that takes up no room in your house. Things that you admire, that you'd like to do, that you might like to do someday, Receipes that look good, sound good, you want to try.
Not only that it doesn't cost a thing and you can delete those that either don't turn out well (food) or that you decide really doesn't strike your fancy anymore.

I have over 1000 pins.  Does it matter?  Nope. 
I'm pretty sure I'll never do them or try them all.
Does it matter?  Nope.
Just because I like them, and I pin them doesn't mean I am required to do anything else with it.
I've tried a lot of new recipes, I've gotten some ideas for some of my old "STUFF" I collect.
One thing I look for alot and pin alot of is ideas for using old windows, doors, screens & shutters.
Henceforth my "new" cabinet doors, my room divider and a new use for my vintage window (hanging in front of my living room window)

A while back I found an idea for using old shutters as a table runner for hot food.  I thought it was
a neat idea, and having another old shutter just sitting around I discovered that laid end to end it was the perfect length and width for my table.  I really like it because not only does it work well for all the hot dishes on the table without using my kitchen hot-pads, but it can stay on the table after the meal and make a great base for a centerpiece also!
(We took the tilt rod off the center of the louvers and also the hinges off the side, so it would lay flat)

 I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving.  It's my favorite holiday.  Some of my favorite childhood memories are centered around Thanksgiving gatherings with family & special friends.

Now I'm looking forward to a new grandbaby any day, and making more memories.

 

More house to home page edits

 I should be doing my prep work for Thanksgiving day tomorrow, but as I had several projects I was trying to get done before we had any more company I have been working on them and wanted to get the pictures up too, as I am going to be taking a break on my house and enjoying grand-kids and a new baby that will be arriving any day.
Although I still have a lot of things to do, and quite a few unfinished projects in different stages, I'm quite happy with the way things are going.
Now If I could only figure out how to resign myself to the flies.

To see my new edits, visit my "From house to home" page at the top tab, and there are new edits on the kitchen, the livingroom, and the dining room.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

 
 

Sunrise to Sunset

 Since we moved to a different part of the state I've once again been inspired to pick up my camera.
I have to say that I am totally in love with the view "out here". (Did I mention that before?)

Those of us who live here in NE and especially those B&R here who are familiar with NE off I-80 know that this state is filled with diverse scenery.
I love hills.  I love trees, I love canyons.  However I realize that I like best not being surrounded by so many trees that I can't see "out".
I love driving this end of the state and seeing everything from lush green river side on one side of the road to bare rocky sand hills on the other side. I love the canyons! Heading down from the platou of the flat prarie land to the lush green tree pasture land. Coming upon an enterence to a hidden State park I had no idea existed. ( http://www.westnebraska.com/2012/Ash-Hollow-State-Historical-Park/  that is now on my list of want to visit!)  I love being at the top of a hill and being able to see accross the country for endless miles.  A ridge of sand hill "mountains" against the horizon.  The sky, endless blue. I love seeing the sunrise, not over the trees, but thru them.  I love seeing the huge expanse of colorful sky in the evening sunset across the prairie land.

I think one of the reasons I like this spot so well, although most of my life has been spent in the "flat lands" of the state, I have roots to two other areas of NE that are more similar to this.
As painful as the process of moving was, as much as I miss some special people,
This feels good.  It feels right.
Now that I'm thru the hardest patch, I'm loving my life and once again smiling that

"It's Monday again"!

The sunrise-view from the kitchen windows (or in this case, my front porch looking east!)

 

 

 Looking from our house across the driveway

 A view South from the front of our house

 South from our house. The house/trees sit next to the highway

 I was loving the way the snow settled on this bush in front of our house.  It looked like balls of cotton or a "real" snowball bush

 I love sunsets, and where we lived before they were mostly hid by trees and the position of our place.  Out here it is wide open space and we can see the whole sky.
Obviously my kids are intrigued too, as they keep taking off with my camera to capture the beauty.

Had to add these also, playing with my camera at night during the evening of "our" first snow here