Home Made

I'm sorting photos this weekend.
I'm just adding favorites.
This was from our harvest in 2006.
Aren't they pretty?

Foresight and Faith

About 1963, Gramps and Granny built a new house in Afton. They had sold Austin Auto Parts and were going into the house construction business. So, first, Gramps built the "Green House", sort of a show case for what he could do. Advertisement. And of course, he needed a home for his wife and last four children!

Meanwhile, my nature loving Mama, ordered her a bunch of lilacs and the folks planted them all along the north edge of the yard, lining the alley. Soon, the neighbor to the west lined his yard and the neighbor, east, across the street, planted a row. This small street in Afton, IA is glorious during lilac time!

Every spring, I drive Mama by the Greenhouse while the lilacs bloom and remind her that she and Gramps planted them. We did? she says. And each spring I am thankful my Mama had the faith and the foresight to plant the lilacs.

A Rambling Town

This is downtown Champaign, I think. Champaign or Urbana. They run into each other. Last Fall, Himself and I had just breakfasted with Kristy and Tony. They got in their car and headed to work. Himself and I got in our car to head home but I said "WAIT!" I want to take a picture.

I have this photo where I periodically come across it and I like it each time I see it. I like it a lot! The pretty tree against the industrial looking wall. The iron railing. The leaves the same color as the boarded up windows. I think this photo might win a contest!

Winter bright spots

This is our yard. Two bright red cardinals in a black and white world. We had had ice the day before, the trees and plants shrouded in thick ice. This day, there were 3 pair of cardinals and 50 other birds at the backyard feeder to brighten our day. Himself keeps the feeders stocked which is the key to keeping the birds in our yard and not the neighbor's!

this photo borrowed from the internet. My hotbed is more narrow and longer and set right up against a concrete wall -- for thermal gain, I thought.

Next year, I will know I need something to heat the soil. Maybe I'll use it in the fall for one more radish crop or start in March to get a head start on peas. Forget January and February. I think organic is the way to garden and eat so I will be doing a lot more experimenting with food crops and production methods.

Pulled the Plug

My latest experiment was a hotbed against the south concrete wall of the house. Fall lingered on and winter came late so I sowed some seeds in the 30"X 48" little greenhouse, improvised with an old window and cast off lumber. With only solar heat during the day and a rug thrown over the glass at night, I babied the lettuce and radishes into January. They grew slowly but they stayed green and I kept telling myself that I learned just a bit more every day I kept them alive. Then in January it began to snow. The temperatures dropped. Artic air swooped in and sat. The January deep freeze was too much. One day this week, I went out and pulled the plug.

Comfort

It isn't even pretty but long ago when times were hard and winters long and cold, someone cut worn, heavy winter coats into strips and pieced them together into this "iron" comforter and lined it with a worn Navajo blanket. No blanket in the world is as warm as this one. With creativity and determination, our Lady of the Quilt cut and sewed dark strips into rhythm and symmetry.

The comforter warmed me as a child. As an adult, the work that went in to the quilt warms my heart and fires my imagination.

When I saved it from Mama's diminished household, the ties were breaking and the comforter thread-bare in places. Fragile. For six months it has moved around my house, room to different room, calling for the mending. Finally, tonight it is the sewing machine. Another step or two and it will be done, reinforced for another 50 years of warmth and comfort.

Video Clips

Yes! I like the video clips that I have finally learned how to put in. I will use that option more often, now, on my camera. If the clips below, look black or blank, just go ahead and double click on the start arrow. That should start the video clip. Have fun!

MORE! Rock n Roll

and one "behind the scenes" guy . . .

Rock n Roll Babies

Rock n Roll Children1

The first clip I took turned into a brawl with Morghan and Jack going all out. Seriously. On this one, they are just playing!

Maternal Instincts

At almost 88 years, Mama's memory is gone. Short term memory is almost non-existent. Long ago childhood memories are fading now too but sometimes long engrained habits come through. Saturday was one such day.

I plopped Audrianna on her lap and Great Granny relished holding, smelling and touching baby Audri. She checked her hands to see if baby was warm enough. She took the bottle to feed the little one but realized Audri was too interested in what was going on around her to eat. Mama reminded herself, Morghan Grace and me that you have to hold tight to a babe this size, they wiggle.

Mama knows these things after nine children, 24 grandchildren and 34 "greats" -- and baby Audri sensed it. She leaned back, relaxed and kicked one little leg.

Putting this segment behind

I am now clean for 4 months and I won't write about it anymore. Other people do bigger, better things. Give up bigger addictions. Climb higher mountains. Inspire more people. I will just, each month, focus on the next month's anniversary. Then, as the years go by, I will look towards the next year's anniverary.

1 hour

I have passed a milestone this past week. Three mornings of the past 5-day work week, I have not had a "cigarette" thought pass through my brain until I had been up out of bed for at least an hour. This is a break through as usually it is about 5 minutes from the time I get up until I think "cigarette".

To even go one hour first thing in the morning without thinking about the damn little critters is unthinkable!

News Flash

Great; just heard that the Chantix might be linked to a suicide or two. And I thought my black mood this past weekend was due to withdrawal from the Chantix and my week off my "Miracle Cream".


I said when I got the Chantix that it hadn't been on the market long enough -- I (or the scientists) really didn't know what side effects there might be but I had debated it and with sound mind, decided to take the chance. I was practically weaned off the Chantix and then this past weekend I struggled so on Saturday that finally I took a pill and another on Sunday, 1/2 on Monday. I set out 1/4 for today but haven't taken it.


As I have no intention of suicide, guess I will just quit those darn pills and be mean and rotten. Perhaps you remember in an earlier post (or maybe it was just in a letter to someone) I said, maybe I really am just mean and whiney, as a non-smoker. Guess we are going to have to find out.

For a non-smoker, you will be thinking, geesh, she's been quit for 3 months. Get over it. You'll think that bad habit should be all behind me. Wish it was . . .

if you don't smoke, never start, Love, Ma


PS: Uncle Dick told me if the day ever comes when they tell him "you have 2 years, or 6 mo. or whatever", he'll be smoking. And he's been quit for 10 or 15 years now.

Old Habits Die Hard

Here I am, on November 24, coming up on the three month anniversary of quitting smoking. For the past week I have been struggling a bit more than I had been, just at different, odd times. And I've been grumpier, or quicker to "flare", anyway. Just ask Lanny.

I think this is because I gave up the medicine a week to ten days ago. I believe the last vestiges of both the nicotine and the "quit smoking" drug have now been dredged from every last fat cell, nerve ending and brain receptor. With that huge ol' addiction gone, I just have to work on getting past all the old, long engrained habits. I just have to keep plugging away, one day at a time.

But I still carry the last of the quit smoking pills in my purse. Just in case . . .

My Watch

I babysat today, for Miss Audri Lu. I sang to her "Audri Lu" . . . to the tune of Mary Lou, way back when by Ricky Nelson. "Hello, Audri Lu, Goodbye heart" . . . well, it was cuter when it was just her and me. I remember Morghan Grace's song was, and still is, "Morghan Grace, you have the cutest little baby face" and if I work at it, I'll come up with the personal little songs for the other grandbabes.

I take the "watch" seriously, even enjoying every minute of the grandbaby time.

It is not just Audri, but started with Morghan Grace and continues down the line. I still sleep on the davenport when the Small Frey are here camped out on the livingroom floor. When the Little Hofs are at the cabin or when I'm in charge with Audri. I check them all when they are sleeping. Make them stir. I uncover Audri's little nose when she drags the blanket up over her head as she is want to do, and as I did for the other six before her.

When I take little ones to the Beach at Too, I sit with my back to the beach and count heads in the water. (I "feel" my mother in me, watching 9 of us at the beach -- no wonder we didn't get to swim very often!)

Mom's wayward words -- or way with words

My Mother always had a good vocabulary and was a good speller and ever since I can remember, she and Gramps always did crosswords puzzles. I was never sure why Granny got the morning crossword puzzle and Gramps the afternoon but that was the way it seemed to work. My mother's childhood was spent, of course, in a simpler time with draft horses and such and no cars much until she was half grown.

As a child, if one of us children would ask Mom how to spell a word, she would tell us "look it up". She thought we would remember it better next time, if we looked it up this time. Mom always read, had taken Latin for Pete's sake in high school (ancient? I thought so!)knew her geography and math.

Now, Mom, in a regular conversation struggles to find the word she wants or to put them together in the right order. This evening, tho, using a list of old fashioned words, Mom was able to define and explain. She told me what a sickle is and what is is used for, she described a horse's trace and not quite so sure of herself, the brace. She knows quite well what a furrow is and described something to me called a gang saw and a gang plow -- then corrected my pronunciation. Scythe, she said, is pronounced "sigthhh".

Thank God. Some things never change!

Things to be thankful for . . .

It has been two months, 60 days, since I last had a cigarette. I won't fib; there's been a few times I WOULD have had one if there was a cigarette laying around. Weekends at home are hard, sometimes, but I get a piece of gum and chew the daylights out of it for awhile. Don't know why weekends in Mo would be easier? I am taking 1/2 pill, or a quarter of the dosage so ain't doing too bad but know I need to start skipping a day here and there, with the meds.

I absolutely ate too much this weekend, what with birthday company (and cake) around. This afternoon, finally, I was feeling so . . . full . . . and guilty for eating too much and her Mama sick with fever and cold, I took little Miss out for a 30 minute run. (Not literally, but I walk fast.) That felt good but it will take a few days to get back to normal after all I have eaten.

It was GREAT, having daughters around and we shopped and galivanted and talked. Missed my son and family, of course, but will look forward to seeing them soon.

Testing, 1, 2, 3

Went out for a walk today and saw the co-worker out in her car having a cigarette so I went to talk to her. Told her I was testing myself. At first, I couldn't even smell the smoke but after visiting with her a bit (she is thinking about trying this "quit smoke" medicine I'm on) I did smell the smoke and it didn't smell good.

I mentally leaned back on my medicine for support -- but was relieved to know that the smell of the cigarette didn't make me want to go out and buy some.