Friday, July 30, 2010

Flashback Friday

My little sister, Heidi, at her 6th birthday party.

I stuck up for this kid to the point where I rode in the front of the bus with her during her entire year of kindergarten because I did not want her to get picked on like I did when I was little.  I will defend her to the death if I have to...I would for any of my sisters.   Isn't she a bug?  She still is...even though she will be 30 in less than a year!  Where does the time go? 

My paternal grandpa is in the background...birthdays were always a big deal in our family because I had the immense fortune of growing up within 20 miles of both sides of my family. 

Friday, July 23, 2010

Flashback Fridays

My grandma and my Oma (great-grandmother) Mother's Day in the early 90's.  Two very important women in my life and when I was going through scanning pictures for my mom, I just found myself reminiscing about all of the Sundays when we would go and get donuts after church and then visit with everyone at the nursing home.  I don't think Oma was really involved in all of the conversations much, especially at the end (she lived to be over 100) but I believe she knew we were all there because of her and she was comforted by that.

Just think.  Ankica and Lillian would not be here if not for my Oma....or other ancestors for that matter, but I remember this one well :-)  Strong female genes on my mom's side of the family...both great-grandmothers lived to 100+ and my other great-grandmother lived in her own house until she died.   I hope I can leave a legacy like they did for me and my sisters. 

Thank you, Oma, for your faith and your strength.  I need to find out more about her and get it written down...I want my girls to know about her and what a great woman of God she was.

Enjoy your weekend!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Flashback Fridays

My sister, Heidi, is in the background watching me get my clown make-up on.  I don't really remember how we got into the clown gig, but we dressed up for a parade one year.  I know that my grandfather loved to dress up and act the clown so I suspect it had something to do with him :-)  This was the summer of 1989.  The shorts were homemade and NOT part of the clown outfit :-)  Oh yeah...stylin'!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

The start of Flashback Fridays...on Sunday

I am scanning pictures for my mom and thinking that maybe a Flashback Friday might be fun for the blog.  I still want to start my What is it Wednesdays back up but I haven't found anything good yet.  I am working on that.

November 1986...I was student of the month in middle school and much to my dismay (at the time), my cousin Amy earned the honor the same month.

Friday, July 9, 2010

In an effort to blog more...

Once upon a time, way back when we lived in Columbus, we stopped at Barnes & Noble and we looked at the journal section....we LOVE the journal section.  Here I found a journal that encouraged mom's to write down their legacy to their children.  What happened at this time? What did you feel about this?  I liked the idea but I didn't like the journal so I bought that journal for the ideas and another journal that was blank to write in.

I haven't started the process.  I want to, I just haven't started yet.

So I thought maybe I would type it out on the blog first and then write it later...something about having a hand-written journal to read appeals to me and maybe the girls will find it interesting some day.  Turns out Julia has a journal to read when she gets older...something Loran kept when he was overseas for her.  I think that is totally cool...weird for me in a way...but cool for Julia.

Maybe I'll start the process soon...or maybe I should figure out how to more effectively teach my Intro to Dairy Science class.  July is going by so fast already!  You'll be the first to know what my decision is.  I might share with you either way :-)  I know I have friends who always like to hear about cows :-)

I love to leave the light on in the kitchen

I have a memory of my grandmother leaving the light on in the kitchen.  Sometimes it was the stove light after supper and sometimes it was the light by the water dispenser in the fridge when we went to bed.  But there was always a light on in the kitchen so we could see our way around. 

Tonight, because of the humidity I suppose, two banks of lights didn't work but I wanted to finish the dishes after the girls went to bed so I turned on the rarely used light above the sink.  Mostly it is rarely used because the light switch is in an inconvenient spot, but as soon as I turned it on, I was reminded of my grandmother.  She passed away when I was a senior in high school.  I remember how I felt that day.  We knew it was coming but I was devastated.   She was the first grandparent I lost and it was just a roller coaster of emotions at that time in my life.

So I think I will leave little lights on in the kitchen more often...it reminds me of times in my life that were simpler and very special.  These memories are why I needed to come back home to Wisconsin...so my girls could have sleepovers at Grandpa and Grandma's house and have memories lodged so deep into their beings that simple things become profound and wonderful. 

Thursday, July 8, 2010

No pictures? Sorry, just my thoughts

I came to the realization today that I don't blog if I don't have pictures or videos...and yet I read people's blogs all the time that don't have pictures or videos all the time, just because I like to read what they write. So why don't I write just to write? I suppose because I don't find myself as fascinating as those people whose words I admire or I don't think I am as interesting as my kids (who are adorable enough to cause a stranger to tell me that if my husband and I make kids like these we should consider making more...I'm with him on that).

So last night it rained. We were watching Avatar because I wanted to see it. I wanted to see the graphics that people raved about and I generally don't care what political agenda there may or may not be in a movie. I liked the movie overall...I just pretended that I had never heard anything about the supposed agenda. We watched the movie upstairs on the smaller screen so that we could be with the girls who fell asleep not long after supper, both of whom admitted to me that they were tired and asked if they could please lay down on the couch (which is SO much better than falling asleep at the table :-) ) As we watched the movie, it rained hard. It rattled the big windows upstairs but I was glad because I really don't like watering my flowers or my garden...I really prefer God to do that for me.

As we were getting ready for bed, I let the dogs out and as they moved out into the darkness to do their thing, I heard the rain hitting the corn...it was a great sound. As I sit here I can see the corn out in the back and it is beautiful blowing in the breeze. A few weeks ago, Loran complained about the farm-type smells one evening and found myself a little miffed because there is a part of me that LIKES that smell because of what it means. It means farming, which I love, it is part of my family's past, which I treasure, it means that we are in Wisconsin again, which continues to make me happy on a daily basis. It reminds me of the good things in life. I can't wait until we can have our "farm" that will have mostly a few horses, but maybe a few other critters as the girls start to see the benefit of farming. It might be fun to bale our own hay or have an alternating field of corn and soybeans.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

How we spent the weekend

Friday: Worked on cleaning the house and enjoyed a great meal and watched the first two Twilight movies in preparation...

Saturday: Loran does guitar lessons in the morning and I clean...his last guitar lesson was at home so the girl could babysit while we went to watch Eclipse. Loran and I really enjoyed it...better than the first two for sure! Then we just hung out at home...it was nice!

Sunday: A few weeks ago, Loran was mowing the lawn and hit something. It killed the mower. We didn't pay much for it in the first place so fixing it seemed to be a bit out of the question. So after getting up awfully early to get to church for him to practice for the worship team, we went to Lowe's to look at new mowers. The awesome saleswoman told us about a deal...a mower that needed to be repaired that was a top of the line John Deere push-mower that we could get for a little over half the price and it was still covered by the warranties! We snapped up the deal and when we got home we started mowing lawn. Loran did the front lawn and the neighbor's lawn and I did the backyard...WE LOVE MO, the new mower! I made beans, cucumbers and potato salad and homemade ice cream cake and grilled hamburgers from the town's meat market.

It rained but when it stopped we figured we'd head into Platteville for the fireworks. Because there was another storm moving in, they lit off the fireworks before it was even really dark. We sort of saw two as we were driving in and missed the rest. Luckily I had sparklers at home so we were outside when we noticed that somewhere in Belmont there were about 10 fireworks being lit off. So we saw some :-) I keep reminding Ankica that Homecoming will have lots in October. She remains unconvinced.

Monday: We had a lazy morning...we read a little and started to clean and organize. There were still boxes to unpack! I organized my pantry closet and parts of the kitchen finally. Loran took off two baseboard heaters so that we could put our free bookshelves up and unpack our books. After that, I unpacked the books and he cut out pieces for a shelf he is making for the girls. Then we relaxed and enjoyed our "completed" living room and read. As much as I missed spending time with my family, it was a busy, productive, and wonderful weekend at home.

View as we walk up the stairs from our room...because the shelves match the white walls it make it look like a second floor of a library or old bookstore...just what we want!

This is a hutch/cabinet thing that we got from the landlords when they moved out and down-sized. It has books in it right now but I hope to have dishes to put in it someday :-)

Our living room with the couch and sofa that we trading our lawn-mowing services for...super comfortable and "pre-catted" (some scratches but perfect for our house).

The bookshelves with most of our books. Most of them are science fiction. Three and half of the shelves are written or co-written by Anne McCaffrey. Loran has John Ringo and Orson Scott Card. I also have Elizabeth Moon and Mercedes Lackey. We also have a shelf of "required reading" classics (literature and poetry) and some science books and the rest are political and history books. Our Bible commentaries and other books on religion are in the hutch at the top of the stairs. I love our library :-)

Our piano that we got in trade for our digital piano because we had room and they were moving to a smaller house. I feel a little bad because she was a piano performance major but I have already taught Ankica to find the "C"'s on the piano and I am planning on taking lessons again once school starts up again. For now it holds our family pictures quite nicely :-)